


the colors of the sky

by astralscrivener



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Paladin Lance (Voltron), Canon-Typical Violence, Galaxy Garrison, Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), JuLance, JuLance Challenge, Keith's Wolf Is A Little Shit, Lance (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Multi, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Lance (Voltron), Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), Survival, Texting, The Galaxy Garrison Is Not To Be Trusted, Warnings May Change, monsters & mana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-01 02:26:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 29,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15133058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: A collection of drabbles/ficlets centered on Lance, from the prompts by@thieflancefor the#JuLance challengeon Twitter.Given up at Day 22: Confession“Well, McClain, looks like you ignored every last one of my warnings,” Iverson says by way of greeting, peering down at Lance in clear disdain, as if Lance expected anything different.





	1. i. ocean

**Author's Note:**

> Heyoooo so I dunno if I'll actually finish this challenge by the end of the month, but I'll try!! ~~hahaha why did i start another writing project i have like 5 already~~
> 
> prompt list was linked in the fic description [but here it is again](https://twitter.com/thieflance/status/1013546022063124480)!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lance can almost pretend it's Earth._
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6: The team's camped out on a beachy planet during the road trip back to Earth.

## i. ocean

            Lance can almost pretend it’s Earth.

            The tide is a shade of blue closer to purple than green, and the sun’s rays don’t quite reflect off of the water the way they did back home, but it’s better than nothing.

            The planet was Lance’s suggestion. The team’s been taking turns each day, picking places to camp out when they can’t keep their eyes open any longer, or the Lions need a place to stop and recharge, now that the castle is gone, nothing but a rock in Allura’s possession. Today, the rotation landed on him, and the beachy destination of Ureeno seemed the most appealing, out of the closest locations to them.

            It’s certainly that way now, under the golden rays of a sunset.

            By now, the others have already turned in for the night, caving in to the exhaustion eating at them, but Lance’s skin buzzes. They’re fortunate, here—the air is breathable, harmless enough for him to be out here in regular clothes, rather than his suit of armor, left in Red’s cockpit for the time being.

            Lance rolls his jeans up to his knees and then wades out into the water, barefoot. It’s warm against his skin, and he sighs, contentedly. He steps slowly, reveling in these moments. He makes it as far out into the water as he can before waves lap his pant cuffs and stops, closes his eyes.

            His arms hang at his sides, and in his mind, Lance can imagine his hands filled, with the tiny hands of his niece and nephew. He’s no longer on Ureeno—he’s back on Varadero Beach, his family’s house a five minute walk away from the sand. The scent of seabreeze fills his nose, sets his senses on fire. Unlike the kind of fire his senses endure in battle, undergo during training, this is a good fire. A bonfire, Lance likes to think of it. Just like the kinds he would sit by on the beach late at night, surrounded by family, a guitar in his hands more often than not.

            Before he knows it, his eyes sting, and he opens them to find the sun much lower against the horizon. A lump settles painfully in his throat.

            Sunsets are shorter here than on Earth, and so are nights. When the sun comes back up, the team is supposed to clear out, because according to Coran, one night should be enough to recharge the Lions to get to their next destination, whatever that may end up being. It’s more than likely not going to be a beach destination like this.

            So Lance takes his time out in the water, sacrificing sleep for whatever snatches of nostalgia he can get. He scoops water in his hands, lets it run through his fingers and down his arms, wetting the edges of his rolled-up sleeves.

            He stays in the tide until his toes start turning pruney, and retires to the beach, sprawling out on the sand. He gazes at the dark sky above, the same place the team will be headed tomorrow morning, and Lance will have to give up the illusion that they’ve finally made it back home.

            _Soon,_ he reminds himself.

            This planet may allow him to bask in his delusion, but it’s just one stepping stone along the path back to his real home, back to Varadero and true ocean breezes and the sands he grew up in, back to bonfires and home-cooked meals and his loving family.

            _Soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well see y'all tomorrow


	2. ii. cell phone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The final object Lance spies is his phone._
> 
> Canon-verse*, post-s6. The Paladins have finally arrived back on Earth, and Lance has reunited with his family. He goes up to his old room.
> 
> *I have no idea how much time has passed in the actual show besides that time Keith was on the space whale, take my crappy guestimates as you please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol i cried while writing this have fun

## ii. cell phone

            True to his mother’s word, his room has been left untouched in the apparent two years— _just two, wow, it feels a lot longer than that, but I guess that_ _’s expected when you’re fighting a war and you’ve literally perished in battle_ —he’s been in space.

            Lance’s eyes sweep over everything. His black-and-blue bedsheets are still meticulously neat, the way he made them up just before heading out to the Garrison after what would, unbeknownst to him, his final break from classes. His figurines and model rockets still sit in neat lines along his bookshelves and on his desk, while his probably-outdated laptop rests underneath a thin layer of dust. Posters still adorn his walls, and Lance’s face turns scarlet at the one poster of Shiro tacked up on his closet door. He’ll have to tear that one down later, before he allows any members of the team up here.

            The final object Lance spies is his phone. It rests on his bedside table, underneath his lamp, unplugged. Like his laptop, it must be outdated, but according to Veronica, the family never stopped paying the phone bill, because they weren’t sure when Lance would return and need it— _“Because we never lost hope you’d come back!”_ his mother explained to him, teary-eyed, while Veronica pulled him aside long enough to explain, a little more truthfully, _“The Garrison is full of liars, and we’ve been investigating. We knew you were out there somewhere,”_ which, _problem for another time_.

            Something draws Lance to his phone. He picks it up, and to his surprise, it turns on when he presses the power button. Evidently, it’s died sometime between his last departure and now, because there’s a prompt for him to put in his password, where usually there isn’t, unless it’s died or been restarted. He puts it in, and immediately, his phone buzzes like an angry hornet’s nest.

            His phone floods with message after message, the screen freezing several times before it’s all over. The message count on his texting app makes his heart stop in his chest, because it’s far over a thousand. His fingers tremble, thumb hovering over the app before he winces and opens it, to a list of everyone he’s received a message from.

            The messages span back across those two years.

            He scrolls all the way to the bottom, to delete the messages that are two years old, from people irrelevant to his life now—texts back days late from girls he’d been talking to, texts back from guys he couldn’t give less of a shit about now, the occasional message from his service provider—until he reaches the more recent ones.

            They’re all from family members.

            Lance’s eyes water before he knows it, as he opens messages from his siblings, his mother, his abuela. His sister’s sums up everything that’s happened since he’s been gone, and they’re probably the most coherent out of everyone’s.

**_ronnie :D [received 2 years ago]_ ** _  
where the hell are you_

**_ronnie :D [received 2 years ago]  
_ ** _the garrison says you_ _’re dead_

**_ronnie :D [received 2 years ago]  
_ ** _what the hELL LANCE_

**_ronnie :D [received 2 years ago]  
_ ** _FUCK YOU LEFT YOUR PHONE AT HOME_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 11 months ago]  
_ ** _they_ _’re already closing the investigation, this is bullshit_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 10 months ago]  
_ ** _we_ _’re gonna get to the bottom of this_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 10 months ago]  
_ ** _we_ _’re getting into contact with some of the other families, like hunk’s and that other kid you wrote home about. what was his name, pidge? we’re talking to some lady named colleen, she’s apparently pidge’s mom. her son and husband were on the kerberos mission. she doesn’t trust the garrison either, so good to see sketchiness is like…a thing, I guess._

**_Ronnie :D [received 1 year, 9 months ago]  
_ ** _happy birthday, lance. hope 18 is treating you well, wherever you_ _’re at. we miss you._

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 7 months ago]_**  
_lol guess who almost got arrested by government personnel for unauthorized snooping!!_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 7 months ago]  
_ ** _don_ _’t worry, it’s not gonna stop me or anything. colleen’s like, wicked good at this “spying on a government agency” stuff. you’d have a field day with this mr. “I think I’m being so slick right now”_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 5 months ago]  
_ ** _I miss you baby bro. the family_ _’s still taking it hard. mama broke down again today. the investigation still hasn’t turned up everything, and I think the garrison’s spying on US now._

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 5 months ago]  
_ ** _god, I just_ _…where did you GO?_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 5 months ago]  
_ ** _just_ _…send a sign if you’re out there, give me SOMETHING to work with here_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 5 months ago]  
_ ** _saw a shooting star tonight. can_ _’t help but think it’s the signal I asked for. I hope you’re doing okay._

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 4 months ago]  
_ ** _there_ _’s apparently a fourth cadet missing. like, on top of you and hunk and that pidge kid and also your hero shiro. keith. remember him? of course you do. …I wish I could bring myself to tease you more but just, wow. knowing there’s another kid missing. how many other kids is the garrison hiding from us?_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 4 months ago]  
_ ** _I hope you_ _’re safe out there, wherever you are. you better be. you know mama’s gonna whoop your ass if you’re out there being reckless, and then I’m gonna have to take a swing after…_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 4 months ago]  
_ ** _I miss you_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 3 months ago]  
_ ** _so apparently the garrison_ _’s got some top secret project that they’ve suddenly started accelerating their progress on. something about deep space travel, distant galaxies. all that Star Wars and Star Trek kinda junk you love. I feel like it has to do with you, and I’m…considering enlisting._

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 3 months ago]  
_ ** _I just want my little brother back_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 3 months ago]  
_ ** _update: couldn_ _’t even bring myself to tell mama my idea. I can’t do it. it would break her heart, especially if something happens to me. I wish I could do more than just whatever this is now, because progress the last month’s been slow. colleen’s doing deep digging and it’s still not turning up much._

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 3 months ago]  
_ ** _this sucks_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 3 months ago]  
_ ** _I want to do more I_ _’m SORRY I’M SO SORRY_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 2 months ago]  
_ ** _colleen found something about a blue robot lion_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 2 months ago]  
_ ** _yeah, you read that right. A BLUE ROBOT LION. does the garrison think this is a fucking joke? are they trying to mislead us?_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 1 month ago]  
_ ** _they found hard drives from pidge_ _’s computer. All they found on them were recordings of, get this, alien signals. They’re all talking about some thing called Voltron. sounds like some sci-fi show or something. I feel like the garrison is just planting this shit for us now._

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 1 month ago]  
_ ** _like yeah my brother_ _’s just fucking GONE but write your stupid scifi stories out for us to find and just make a mockery of us it’s FINE NO BIG DEAL AT ALL, RIGHT? WHERE’S THE HARM IN FUCKING AROUND WHEN THERE ARE LIVES IN YOUR HANDS, RIGHT?_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 1 month ago]  
_ ** _this is why I don_ _’t fucking trust the government, you deserve better than this_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 1 month ago]  
_ ** _they all deserve to be fired for this or WORSE how would they like it if these were their families and they_ _’re just getting fed some robot lion mumbo jumbo LIKE_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year, 1 month ago]  
_ ** _I_ _’m so sorry, I swear I’m gonna find you, you and pidge and hunk and shiro and keith and matt and sam and anyone else the garrison just magically ~lost~_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year ago]  
_ ** _it_ _’s been a year and we’ve got nothing_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year ago]  
_ ** _they_ _’re still following that stupid blue lion thing and I don’t know whether or not it makes me a fool if I’m starting to buy into it_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year ago]  
_ ** _I know hunk_ _’s moms are caving_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year ago]  
_ ** _it_ _’s literally the only lead they have and colleen says she’s uncovering these files under some heavy encryption and firewalls, like_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year ago]  
_ ** _doesn_ _’t that mean something?_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year ago]  
_ ** _or are we just so desperate for answers we_ _’re willing to believe whatever wild goose chase they’re sending us on? I’m not delusional, am I? are we? I mean, these are the same people that said you’re dead but if we had to dig deep for this stuff maybe there’s some truth?_

**_ronnie :D [received 1 year ago]  
_ ** _I don_ _’t know. I’m tired. I miss you. we all miss you._

**_ronnie :D [received 11 months ago]  
_ ** _I think they_ _’re tracking my phone now. Have to lay low for a while. Hope you’re okay._

**_ronnie :D [received 7 months ago]  
_ ** _they were definitely tracking me. sorry I couldn_ _’t wish you another happy birthday. I hope 19 was okay. colleen’s made some massive breakthroughs and uh? turns out the robot lion thing is the truth after all, and Voltron is some universal weapon, and it’s supposedly real. I feel like you already know this. I hope you’re okay out there._

**_ronnie :D [received 6 months ago]  
_ ** _do you know how many sleepless nights I_ _’ve had since I found out what the point of voltron is_

**_ronnie :D [received 6 months ago]  
_ ** _because that_ _’s the only plausible explanation for where you went aside from death somewhere out in the middle of the desert, and I don’t know which is worse to think about: you being dead in the desert all this time, or you dying on some faraway planet in the middle of space and us never hearing from you or finding your body._

**_ronnie :D [received 6 months ago]  
_ ** _jeez that was morbid but_ _…_ _god_

**_ronnie :D [received 6 months ago]  
_ ** _I knew the garrison was a military institution but you being one of five special soldiers for the universe_ _’s greatest weapon isn’t what any of us had in mind when you enlisted. strong feeling mama’s gonna kill you if you make it home alive._

**_ronnie :D [received 6 months ago]  
_ ** _WHEN, I MEANT WHEN_

**_ronnie :D [received 5 months ago]  
_ ** _investigations have run cold. I feel like we_ _’ve done what we can. colleen feels like we’ve reached satisfying answers, but I don’t know. I wanna know how you got out there in the first place. what the lion had to do with it. how you ended up with keith and pidge and hunk and shiro…you know, if you ARE with them._

**_ronnie :D [received 3 months ago]  
_ ** _ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME_

**_ronnie :D [received 3 months ago]  
_ ** _YOU FOUND MATT AND SAM AND YOU_ _’RE REALLY A PALADIN OF VOLTRON AND YOU’RE REALLY OUT WITH THOSE KIDS ARE YOU FOR REAL_

**_ronnie :D [received 3 months ago]  
_ ** _by the way, your video? made me CRY YOU ASSHOLE, I HAD TO WATCH MAMA BREAK DOWN AGAIN, AND SEEING YOU BREAKING DOWN WASN_ _’T ANY BETTER_

**_ronnie :D [received 3 months ago]  
_ ** _I_ _’m so sorry about what’s happening_

**_ronnie :D [received 3 months ago]  
_ ** _you_ _’re so strong and I’m so proud of how far you’ve come even though SPACE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE AN OPTION FOR QUITE A WHILE_

**_ronnie :D [received 3 months ago]  
_ ** _I_ _’m just…really surprised at hunk_

**_ronnie :D [received 3 months ago]  
_ ** _but I don_ _’t know much about pidge so I guess I won’t feel bad throwing hands with an almost-seventeen??? 18?? How even old is she wOW I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE’S A SHE_

**_ronnie :D [received 3 months ago]  
_ ** _anyway_ _…I hope you come home soon. maybe sam being back is a sign that you’ll be home, too._

**_ronnie :D [received 2 months ago]  
_ ** _so sam finally told us what happened when he got back and wow. holy shit man. garrison really tried to shoot him down and won_ _’t negotiate._

**_ronnie :D [received 2 months ago]  
_ ** _I should mention he explained this to us via his one phone call_

**_ronnie :D [received 2 months ago]  
_ ** _garrison apparently arrested him last month as soon as he finished meeting with us_ _…I feel like we’re next unless we lay low. I’m sorry, I can’t text anymore._

**_ronnie :D [received 2 months ago]  
_ ** _till we meet again, bro_

            Maybe two years ago, Lance would’ve blamed things on the dust. Now, though, he weeps openly, clutching his phone between his fingers. He collapses onto his bed and buries his face in his pillow and lets two years’ worth of emotions pour themselves out, like he hasn’t already sobbed himself dry once since reuniting with his family.

            He must cry for hours, he thinks, until he checks his phone and finds it’s only been fifteen minutes. He sits up with a sniffle, and drags his sleeve across his face. Downstairs, he can hear everyone talking, laughing, Lance’s brother’s voice distinct as he regales the Paladins with tales from Lance’s childhood, no doubt.

            It’s the perfect cover to allow Lance to stay up here, staring at his phone screen. He reads Veronica’s messages again, twice, before he finally works up the courage, and his hands stop shaking just enough, to write back.

**_ronnie :D [sent a few seconds ago]  
_ ** _looks like we meet again, sis_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one and day 25's are my favorite (but then again i've only written 1, 2, and 25, so [shrug])
> 
> see ya tomorrow


	3. iii. flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And then he’d gone into a long-winded summary, which really wasn’t a_ summary _by that point, of everything the flowers_ could _do to an intruder into the garden, a host of physical maladies and mental attacks including hives, rashes, temporary blindness, temporary amnesia, hypnosis, and a whole bunch of other things that amounted to_ don’t touch the quiznaking flowers _._
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6. On another stop along the way to Earth, Cosmo the space wolf decides to do exactly what Coran warned everyone not to. Keith takes Lance to look for him, and they happen upon some...interesting flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "you can't play wizard101 until you finish the day's prompt" i stubbornly told myself 3 hours ago
> 
> here's the prompt

## iii. flowers

            The instructions from Coran had been perfectly clear: they could go to any point on their latest stop along the way back to Earth, _except_ for the flower gardens.

            “Don’t go anywhere near them!” he’d warned, in all of his Space Uncle eccentricity. “That garden is no good for anyone! The flowers aren’t _poisoned,_ per se—”

            And then he’d gone into a long-winded summary, which really wasn’t a _summary_ by that point, of everything the flowers _could_ do to an intruder into the garden, a host of physical maladies and mental attacks including hives, rashes, temporary blindness, temporary amnesia, hypnosis, and a whole bunch of other things that amounted to _don_ _’t touch the quiznaking flowers._

            Whether he meant to or not, that was exactly where Keith’s freaking space wolf ( _Yorak_ , according to Krolia; _Cosmo_ , according to the rest of the team) bounded off to, and Lance was the poor fool roped into helping him search ( _I_ _’m tired,_ Allura said demurely; _I have a duty to watch over the Princess,_ Coran argued, _and I warned you all not to go in there!_ ; _Uhh, gotta fix some stuff with Yellow_ _’s circuitry,_ Hunk had flat-out lied; _I_ _’ve gotta help him,_ Pidge agreed; _I literally just came back from the dead, please let me rest,_ Shiro had pleaded; Krolia and Romelle had mysteriously disappeared on them, probably hiding in Black), because there was no way Keith was going into a garden so supposedly dangerous alone.

            “You survived two years on a space whale with your mom and your dog, and you can’t handle a flower garden?” Lance remarked as they passed a row of purple flowers, somewhere deep inside of the garden.

            “If something happens, like I get knocked into a row of them by Cosmo—because that dog doesn’t know the definition of personal space, just like _some people_ —” a pointed glare in Lance’s direction, “—then I’ve got someone else here for backup. The buddy system never hurt anyone.”

            Actually, Lance could think of several instances—mostly horror movies he’d watched in his early teen years, but Keith didn’t need to know that—where the buddy system got people _killed._ He opened his mouth to express as much when Keith lifted an arm up, halting Lance in his tracks.

            “Are you _kidding me?_ ” Keith said, and Lance peered over his shoulder.

            He broke down what he saw into two categories: good news that would get them out of the flower maze from hell faster, and bad news that would probably have consequences Lance didn’t want to deal with, because he shouldn’t have been in this maze in the _first place,_ but the team wouldn’t let Keith go alone.

            The good news: they found Cosmo.

            The bad news: Cosmo was currently occupying himself by rolling around in some kind of sludge from a row of glowing orange flowers.

            “Cosmo!” Keith said, and the space wolf’s head snapped up, as he ceased rolling around. Keith approached slowly, one hand outstretched. “C’mon boy, we’ve gotta go. You’re not supposed to be in here. You heard Coran.”

            Cosmo tilted his head to the side, tail flicking back and forth as he appraised Keith and Lance.

            Now, Lance would never consider himself an animal _expert,_ but his family had had its fair share of pets over his lifetime, and in that time, he came to know when an animal was about to do something they weren’t supposed to do. They had a similar glint in their eyes to little demon children about to pull some bullshit, and that was exactly what Cosmo did.

            He launched himself at Keith and Lance and zipped right by just as Lance called out a warning. Keith stumbled back, very nearly falling into the row of purple flowers, when Lance caught his arm, righting the both of them before Keith could drag them down.

            “Little shit,” Keith muttered. “He could’ve just _teleported_ —”

            “Uh, Keith?” Lance interrupted.

            He’d only seen it out of the corner of his eye, at first. A longer glance illustrated the scene in full: Keith’s arm had brushed over a few of the purple flowers, as had Lance’s elbow, and though they were both dressed in their armor from head to toe—their oxygen masks had even been activated, faces fully closed off from the environment—the touches had activated something in the flowers.

            The spots they’d made contact with were glowing, and the glow was spreading across the whole section.

            Keith’s eyes widened as he took in the scene before them, while Lance laughed nervously. “Uh…w-what do you think these ones do?”

            “I-I don’t know. Can we scan them, or something?”

            “Oh! Yeah, I can try that.”

            Lance stuck his arm out and aimed his wrist at the row of flowers, blue laser light sweeping over them while data appeared on the left side of Lance’s visor. He skimmed over the unimportant things— _kingdom, phylum, class, order—these aren_ _’t even Earth flowers, how do they HAVE these things?_ —until he came to what he was looking for.

            _Aphroditania Cupiditas: glow when one is in the presence of someone who holds a romantic affection for them._

            Well, if that wasn’t just a punch to the gut.

            Lance flicked his eyes to Keith, waiting patiently for Lance to explain what these flowers were for. Lance’s face grew warm, and he turned away before Keith could see the blush spreading over his cheeks.

            “Uh, they—they, um…they glow when…someone’s in love,” Lance lied, which wasn’t a _total_ lie, but it was much more vague than completely outing his crush on Keith _to Keith_ _’s face,_ right then and there.

            Keith flushed at the explanation anyway. “O-Oh.”

            Lance nodded quickly. “Yeah, um…wow, so, uh…wh-who’s the lucky girl, Keith?”

            _Why the quiznak did you phrase it like that? And stop stuttering!_

            Keith paused, then, at that question. Rubbed the back of his neck. Cast a longing look at the flowers, eyes cutting to Lance, flush deepening—

            Wait, _what?_

            Did Lance see that correctly?

            “Wow, didn’t think it would happen like this, but, uh,” Keith said, and then stopped. Narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute. You touched those flowers, too.”

            _Well, quiznak._

            Lance’s mind was still in the middle of trying to work out an explanation for why the flowers had glowed for _him_ when Cosmo reappeared out of nowhere between the two of them, looking up at Keith with his tongue out and tail wagging.

            “Cosmo!” Keith exclaimed. “Where have you _been?_ ”

            And just like that, they dropped the conversation as Keith scooped up his wolf, scolding him for disappearing, ordering him not to teleport away from them again. And, Lance decided, if Keith was alright with leaving their discussion unfinished, well…that was fine with him.

            _Thank you, Cosmo,_ Lance thought at the wolf, as they started back to their campsite, and Lance could’ve sworn Cosmo lifted his head and winked at him over Keith’s shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PINING FOOLS FT. COSMO, BOTH A MATCHMAKER AND A COCKBLOCK 
> 
> i love keith's space wolf more than i love myself
> 
> anyway see ya tomorrowwww


	4. iv. fireworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Shiro should be sitting in the head’s spot. Keith should be occupying that empty chair. Allura deserves the space at the right end of the stage more than anyone else here._
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6. Another successful addition to the Voltron Coalition means another ceremony in the Paladins' honor. Lance's insecurities rear their ugly heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL MY BLUE SON HE'S LOVED AND VALUED
> 
> also i promise that not every day will be canon-verse wrethegwgerwfwegfe it's just been the easiest to write for/come up with ideas for rn

## iv. fireworks

            Another successful addition to the Coalition means another celebration, and that’s how Lance finds himself on one of Ovinada’s glittering beaches with the rest of the townsfolk and the rest of Team Voltron, preparing for a show in their honor. Glitzy red-and-pink sands shift underfoot, while an ocean more black and green than blue laps the shore.

            Lance meanders about the people gathered as they prepare for the night, laying out chairs and blankets, murmuring excitedly, children running around, a few stopping to greet him. He knows there’s some designated spot he’s supposed to be sitting in with the rest of the team, but he’s got time. Or at least, he thinks he has time, until an announcement plays over the speakers hidden along the beach: _“Two doboshes to showtime! Everyone, please, get comfortable! Take your seats!”_

            _Shoot._

            Lance breaks into a light jog as he heads for the main stage, a small thing that’s been constructed to honor the Paladins, the space where they’ll all be sitting. The others are all already there, talking amongst each other. Five seats, one for each Paladin. Off to the side of the stage, Shiro, Coran, Krolia, and Romelle look on. Lance pauses at the sight of them, as he walks up the steps of the stage. Shiro, mostly. His eyes flick to the five chairs set up, and the empty spot left between Keith and Allura—the spot for Voltron’s right hand. His seat now.

            _Shiro should be up there._

            Shiro should be sitting in the head’s spot. Keith should be occupying that empty chair. Allura deserves the space at the right end of the stage more than anyone else here.

            _Walk. Before people stare._

            Lance puts on his best smile, for the sake of the rest of the team and the crowd, and swaggers over to his seat, plopping down in it like nothing’s wrong. Allura flashes him a smile, bright and sunny, like she’s genuinely happy to see him, and on the other side of his chair, Keith raises his head and gives a thin smile of his own, tired eyes betraying its sincerity.

            He may not want to be here, but at least he _belongs_ here.

            “These people sure know how to party,” Keith remarks quietly. “I take it _you_ _’ve_ been having fun.”

            There’s no reason for Lance to _not_ be having fun, after all. It’s been nonstop celebration for the last few hours, and it’s all been taking place on and around a beautiful beach the color of his Lion. He’s been stopped by dozens of citizens, taken countless selfies with local kids and teens, and yet…

            “Oh, yeah!” Lance says, smooth as ever. “People can’t get enough of me.”

            His grin turns suave, practiced to perfection.

            “I can tell,” Keith replies, and his voice holds no sarcasm, which throws Lance for a loop. His face cracks, for just a second, before it returns to a neutral sort of pleasure, as Keith continues on. “I’ve been stopped by way too many people asking where you are, because you’re their favorite.”

            “He’s right,” Allura chimes in. “I never thought the Red Paladin would have so many fans.”

            Her comment is the most casual thing in the world, and Keith nods in agreement, and then the two of them lean back as the master of ceremonies gets going on things, completely unaware that Lance’s heart is swelling in his chest, and there may or may not be tears welling in his eyes.

            He blinks them away as the master of ceremonies introduces the Paladins. They rise to their feet, names listed off one by one, in order of rank, rather than seating. They begin with the legs, Hunk and Allura stepping forward and waving. Then the left arm, and Pidge beams out at the crowd.

            Then the right arm.

            “Give it up for our Red Paladin, _Lance McClain!_ ”

            The ensuing roar of the crowd is deafening as Lance steps up and gives the most regal wave he can. It’s the loudest of all of the Paladins, he discovers, after Keith is announced as their Black Paladin, and he’s torn between pride and guilt, but all Keith does is give him another smile, warmer and more real than the last.

            The Paladins take their seats again as the ceremony continues on, and they’re subjected to several dances and songs in their honor, performed by various groups: acting troupes, schoolchildren, soloists looking to express their gratitude. It goes on for some time, and Lance never once finds himself drifting away, as he might in other circumstances. It almost surprises him when the ceremonies are drawing to a close, and the master explains that they’ll be ending the night with a lightshow.

            It’s confusing, at first, up until it begins, and Lance understands then that they’re being shown fireworks.

            Whoever designed the fireworks deserves a raise. They explode in brilliant bursts of light, each one depicting a different aspect of Voltron: the whole robot itself, each individual Lion, the sword, their guns. And then, surprisingly—although it shouldn’t be—different shots of the Paladins.

            The fireworks go in the same order the Paladins were announced on the stage, and each Paladin has several different fireworks dedicated to them, it would appear. Hunk’s bathe the beach in different shades of gold as his face appears in the sky, followed by pose after pose—Hunk with his laser canon, Hunk smiling, Hunk piloting. Near-perfect renditions. Allura is up next, and her fireworks depict her in a similar manner, as do Pidge’s.

            Lance can’t hold his tears back when it’s his turn.

            His blue armor contrasts against the Lion he pilots, and where Allura’s fireworks ended up some cross between cotton candy and lavender, Lance’s come out closer to a vibrant shade of violet, fiery red contrasting against cool cerulean. He stares in awe as his own shit-eating grin glints at him, for those few seconds before the fireworks fade, and they’re followed by another snapshot of him, perched somewhere high, the definition of focused as he aims his rifle at an unseen enemy. Then another shot, with the broadsword, a weapon he’s only recently revealed to the public. Another shot, of him piloting his Lion in a Voltron Show routine. Through the whole thing, the crowd screams for him.

            And then his moment is over.

            Lance’s heart is still soaring long afterward, after Keith’s face has appeared and disappeared, after the show’s ended, and the crowd has begun to disperse, while the Paladins linger on the stage for photos, linger to talk to the master of ceremonies one-on-one.

            His eyes sweep the beach while he waits, while Allura talks up the master of ceremonies first. With her words and Keith’s words in mind, his gaze is a little keener, glances a little sharper. He picks out individuals in the crowd who are clearly here to see him—kids with tiny toys he hadn’t noticed before, people in shirts with his name or his face or some abstract symbol meant to represent him.

            _“You belong, too, Paladin,”_ Red purrs in his head, and Lance drops his eyes to the ground, biting his lip as his smile grows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love lance mcclain more than i love myself
> 
> anyway it's actually already the 5th in half of the US including the east coast where i am so imma sleep and then jump on day 5, which is stargazing,,,, hmmmmm
> 
> SEE Y'ALL LATER


	5. v. stargazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Why did I let you rope me into this, again?" Hunk mutters._
> 
>  
> 
> Canon-verse, pre-s1. Lance shows Hunk an important place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, bashing my head into my keyboard as it becomes july 6th: _voltron give us more hunk content so i can write his character decently dammit_

## v. stargazing

            “Trust me, buddy, this place is totally on-limits.”

            “Yeah, but not at _this time of night_ —”

            “Have I ever steered you wrong before?”

            “You don’t want me to answer that question.”

            “Ha ha, very funny. Just trust me.”

            Lance leads Hunk up a winding staircase somewhere deep within the halls of the Garrison observatory, and he’s not _wrong,_ exactly. The observatory is one of the few public spaces on the Garrison property, the only functioning observatory around for miles. But Hunk is most definitely right in that they _probably_ shouldn’t be sneaking in at two in the morning. Especially when they’ve got to be up to get ready for class in less than six hours.

            “Why did I let you rope me into this, again?” Hunk mutters.

            “Because I covered for you when Iverson was on your ass three weeks ago,” Lance responds. “Now hush.”

            Lance raises a hand when they’re about halfway up the stairwell, and listens for sounds coming from either direction. Down below, echoes carry the sounds of distant footsteps, carry the voices of drowsy Garrison personnel far too tired to properly pay attention on their night guard shifts.

            Once the noises pass, and silence takes back over, Lance waves his hand, and they continue on until they hit the door at the top. Lance crouches and presses his ear against it, both to listen for sounds from the other side, and to make sure that if anyone’s there, they can’t see him in the windows. Hunk, too, crouches, and doesn’t move from position until Lance has eased the door open and poked his head inside, and deemed things all clear.

            “C’mon, buddy, _c_ _’mon_ ,” Lance whispers after he’s already inside, motioning Hunk after him. He shuts the door as quietly as he can once Hunk’s joined him, and then sweeps his arms out.

            “Hunketh—”

            “That’s not my real name.”

            “—may I present to you, the greatest discovery I’ve made in all of my shenanigans here.”

            So, they haven’t really gone _inside._ More precisely, they’ve gone _outside,_ to a rooftop that, yeah, okay, maybe they really shouldn’t be on at this time of night, but according to the sign posted on the door, it’s public access during the day and the early night hours. Lance will swear it up and down, and if he says so, then as long as wind of this doesn’t get back to Iverson or any of their instructors, it is law.

            The rooftop is one of the closest to the sky, and a currently-defunct telescope rests off to one side. But the thing is, they have no need for the telescope with the view before them.

            Out in the desert, with little light pollution, and most of the facility lights doused for the night, the sky shimmers under a dazzling blanket of stars. Silver and white, orange and yellow, red and blue and all sorts of faint colors twinkle overhead. Hunk gapes momentarily, because there are no mountains and ridges obstructing the view, all the way up here.

            “Holy crow,” Hunk whispers. “When’d you find this place?”

            With Hunk’s eyes elsewhere, Lance allows his wide smile to waver just the slightest. He’s not about to explain that it’s because one night, everything crashed into him at once, suffocated him and sent him searching for somewhere to release his frustrations, had him blindly stumbling up a staircase struggling to breathe. He’s not about to explain that he’s actually just opened up a _sanctuary_ to Hunk, because as good of friends as they are…this isn’t really the time. Nor the place, ironically enough.

            “Oh, y’know,” Lance replies casually, twirling his hand a bit. “A while back. Can’t quite remember, that’s how often I’ve been coming up here. Because _man_ …this view never gets old.”

            No, the stars have never tired Lance. Not as a child, and not now. He rests an arm on his forehead as he tips his head back to take it all in, and reaches his other hand up. He’s close— _so close_ to touching them. And he’ll get to _soon,_ whether Iverson likes it or not.

            _One day, I_ _’ll be up there. One day, I’ll prove him wrong._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao hopefully the july 6th prompt will go up on the 6th and nOT THE 7TH
> 
> see ya later today hopefully


	6. vi. music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lance squinted, sat up, fumbled for the space phone he may or may not have also taken from Pidge. He found it, and lit up the screen, casting an orange glow over Pidge’s face._
> 
> Canon-verse, one day post-s2. Lance comforts Pidge in the aftermath of the battle with Zarkon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, bashing my head against my keyboard for the second night in a row, this time with tears streaming down my face: _why won't voltron let lance have friends_

## vi. music

            So, Lance didn’t have his earbuds on him the night he climbed into the Blue Lion.

            He didn’t think he’d _need_ them, alright? As far as he was concerned, he was going to hit the town, and chatting up people at whichever party seemed the most appealing meant he needed to be attentive. Alert. The latest party wasn’t supposed to be occurring in a Garrison hospital, or in a castle in space that he hadn’t even known existed.

            He learned, though. He learned that once he got new earbuds of his own, he was never ever leaving those things behind again, because he needed noise to sleep, and a massive castle filled with just seven souls—twelve, if you counted that the Lions themselves had their own sentience—wasn’t the place for it.

            Luckily for him, someone _did_ think to bring headphones—Pidge. And Lance liked to consider himself and Pidge _friends,_ in a begrudging sibling sort of way. And siblings shared things when the other needed something. Like headphones, for instance.

            Which was the whole reason Lance didn’t hear Pidge banging on his door until she was already in his room, standing over him, blocking out the little light leaking in from the hallway like some sort of shadow-demon-monster…thing.

            Lance pretended he _hadn_ _’t_ just let out the most unholy shriek as his—Pidge’s, they’re _Pidge_ _’s_ —headphones slipped down around his neck.

            To her credit, Pidge didn’t even flinch.

            That in itself was normal, but the lack of yelling and immediately demanding her headphones back _wasn_ _’t._ Lance squinted, sat up, fumbled for the space phone he may or may not have also taken from Pidge. He found it, and lit up the screen, casting an orange glow over Pidge’s face.

            Her tear-streaked face.

            “Pidge?”

            Lance was fully awake now.

            He straightened out and shifted forward, until he had gentle hands on Pidge’s arms. Pidge sniffled and dragged one arm across her face, scowling at the floor before giving up on acting frustrated, expression fracturing.

            “Hey, hey—Pidge, what’s wrong?”

            Pidge shuffled closer to Lance as a means of answering, and Lance passed no judgment as she collapsed against his chest.

            If Lance had to guess, he’d say it was stress, breaking down each and every one of Pidge’s careful defenses. They were no closer to finding Matt than they’d been a month ago, and Shiro was missing, now, too. Lance didn’t think _anyone_ on the team had fully recovered from seeing the Black Lion’s cockpit completely empty yesterday, coming off of their battle with Zarkon, but after Keith, Pidge was arguably the person closest to Shiro.

            “It’s gonna be okay,” Lance said quietly. “ _Eeeeeverything_ _’s_ gonna work out.”

            Pidge whined, like she was about to start arguing, but then it faded, and she heaved a sigh, shaky and uncertain. A heartbeat followed, and then:

            “Can I sleep here tonight?”

            “Yeah, yeah, of course,” Lance answered without a second of hesitation, and peered down at Pidge, heart splintering. She felt small, frail against him, shivering and holding back more cries.

            _“Tío Lance!”_

_A head of dark hair, tiny arms around his waist. A little body pressed against his, while he rubbed gentle circles into his niece_ _’s back, and thunder cracked outside, and lightning pulsed in the windows. Above the noise of the storm, Lance sang._

_Slowly. Calmly. A shelter against howling wind and driving rain. He sang until his niece was passed out, and let her stay there the rest of the night, a guardian angel watching over her. He didn_ _’t let himself fall asleep until he was sure she was safe, and wouldn’t wake again in the middle of the night._

_And even if he was wrong—if she did startle—he_ _’d be ready._

Lance wasn’t even sure when he’d begun the lullaby his mother used to sing to him, nor was he sure when he’d eased himself and Pidge back against the mattress. But he questioned nothing. He kept going, voice soft but strong as he rubbed Pidge’s back, while her breathing evened out, slowed.

            By the time Lance finished, she’d mostly calmed down, quiet. Not the quiet Lance was used to from her—not the quiet of bunched shoulders and narrowed eyes and brain-gears turning. Her gaze was distant as she stared at the wall Lance’s bed was up against, like the fight had finally gone out of her, crushed by every blow from the ongoing war, Shiro’s disappearance her breaking point.

            “Here,” Lance said quietly, and sat up a little, removed the headphones from around his neck, and put them over Pidge’s ears. He grabbed the space phone from where it rested, off to the side of his pillow, and scrolled through the various sounds he had saved to it, eyes landing on his personal favorite. “This’ll help.”

            The track was titled _Songs of the Sea_ , a compilation of ocean noises, of whale songs and distant dolphin clicks and rolling tide.

            “Thanks.” Pidge’s voice was barely audible as she lifted one weak hand to adjust the headphones, and then settled back against Lance.

            Lance could pinpoint the moment she let herself drift off with the sounds, the moment she made the shift into sleep, and as with his niece, he still remained up the next hour or two, watching her, until he was sure she’d make it through the night okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GIVE ME MORE SPACE SIBLINGS PIDGE AND LANCE DAMMIT
> 
> _VOLTRON PLEASE_
> 
> ~~lmao i actually got this up on the right day, see y'all tomorrow~~


	7. vii. rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The sky overhead rumbles again, blood-red clouds pulsating angrily, and Lance wonders just who the hell he pissed off in a past life._
> 
> Canon-divergent, probably somewhere in season 2. Lance and Keith crash-land on a planet, and Keith takes the worst of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of my all-time favorite vld fic tropes is when lance and keith are stranded on a planet together
> 
> i joined the fandom in summer 2017 and apparently it was a really big trope in summer 2016 (yknow, given the s1 finale) but i've still read some rlly good fics ewrethegwfgerwf I JUST REALLY LOVE THIS TROPE ~~but also i haven't read smile for the stars and i have no plans to so dON'T EVEN ASK~~
> 
> anyway, klance here can be read as platonic or romantic. i'm a demon klancer so i'm gonna read it as romantic but it's vague enough to be either or, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> **trigger warning for mild gore/body horror(???? what even counts as body horror)/semi-graphic injury description (these warnings are all about the same thing idk how best to describe it)**

## vii. rain

            The sky overhead rumbles again, blood-red clouds pulsating angrily, and Lance wonders just who the hell he pissed off in a past life.

            He sloshes through hot water—at least, it can pass for water, because his scans turn up nothing in it adverse to humans—up to his ankles, heat bleeding through his armor, only the bottom half of which remains on. The canteen in his hands, salvaged from Blue’s emergency supplies, feels no better, but if he and Keith want to survive until the team can track them down, then they’ve gotta stay hydrated _somehow._

            The hot water recedes, the further he walks up the hill, to the cave where Keith rests. Blue guards both the entrance and Red’s broken form, lying just off to the side of the cave mouth. Lance’s gut twists at the sight of Red, the gash in his hull and his head, the broken and warped metal of his claws. Lance makes himself swallow as he looks away, gives a nod to Blue, and then enters the cave.

            The cave is small, cramped. In the center of the floor, their dying fire smolders, embers still flickering, wisps of smoke curling up to the ceiling. Keith lies off to the side, curled up in a blanket, shivering. He lifts tired eyes as to Lance, face gaunt and wan.

            He was injured in the crash that stranded them here, and Lance’s eyes flick to his leg, hidden underneath the blanket. The two of them did their best to clean it, their best to dress it, but if Keith’s sudden sniffling and coughing is any indication…it wasn’t enough.

            “Hey,” Lance greets quietly, and sits down next to Keith.

            Keith groans and pushes up into a sitting position of his own, and it doesn’t last for very long. He ends up with his side pressed against Lance, his head on Lance’s shoulder. Lance passes over the canteen, with an order to do nothing else but _drink,_ and Keith obeys without an ounce of reluctance. When he’s done, the canteen is half-emptier than when he received it, and he passes it back to Lance without so much as a word. Lance takes a few sips of his own, and, yeah, okay, maybe sharing a canteen with Keith is a bad idea when Keith is diseased, and Lance is currently their only means of survival, but he doesn’t want to leave to go wash it and refill it. He doesn’t want to leave _period_ —not more than he has to.

            They have no idea what Keith is infected with, no idea how fast infection can spread, how contagious he is. Someone’s gotta be there to look out for him.

            “How’re you feeling?” Lance asks.

            “Like shit,” Keith bites out, voice gravelly.

            Lance winces at his tone, and Keith deflates immediately after, falling limp against Lance with a whine. Lance frowns, brings an arm around Keith and pulls him close. Stares out the mouth of the cave while Keith looses another breath.

            “It’s getting worse,” he remarks, softer this time. He painstakingly peels back the blanket, revealing ruined bandages that need replacing. Lance’s face screws up in disgust, and he wishes more than anything he knew how to deal with this, but there’s no home remedy for a space infection to the leg. At least, not one his mamá or abuela have ever taught him.

            “Dios mio,” Lance hisses at the sight of it, and then sighs. “Alright, sit tight.”

            Keith shifts, until he’s off of Lance, and Lance leans over to grab the emergency med kit, resting at the back of their tiny shelter. This is the tenth time in approximately three days that Keith’s bandages need changing, and the supply from Blue’s kit is running dangerously low. Soon, Lance is going to have to enter Red’s breach to see if Red’s med kit survived the crash.

            Lance returns to Keith’s side as Keith sticks his leg out, and sets to work on removing the soiled bandages. He grimaces the whole way through, the bandages fucking _squelching_ as he peels them away, while Keith grits his teeth, places a hand on Lance’s shoulder, and digs his fingers in hard. Lance can feel the press of Keith’s nails even through the padding on his black jumpsuit, but doesn’t flinch.

            “I know, I know,” Lance says in what he hopes is a soothing tone. “This is gonna sting.”

            “Just do it.”

            Keith shuts his eyes, face a portrait of pain as Lance takes disinfectant and the sponge from Blue’s med kit. He spritzes the wound, spritzes the sponge, and sets to work on clearing away whatever grime he can, while Keith’s whole body tenses, grip on Lance’s shoulder turning to steel.

            “Almost done. You’re doing great,” Lance murmurs absently, and wipes away the last of what he can. He sets the sponge on the ground when he’s finished, and he’ll wash it once he’s completely finished. For now, though, he takes up the bandages, and begins wrapping a fresh set around Keith’s injury.

            He leans back when he’s done, assessing his work, while Keith slowly lets out a shaking breath, and relinquishes his grip on Lance’s shoulder.

            “Jeez,” Keith mutters, and eases himself back against the wall, while Lance takes up the sponge and stands.

            “I’ll be right back,” Lance says. “I promise I’ll be quick. Shout if you need me for any—”

            Lance cuts himself off as the thunder cracks across the sky, loud enough to shake their cave, violently enough that small pebbles dislodge and fall from the ceiling. Not even a second later, sharp pattering sounds from just outside of the cave’s mouth. Keith’s on his feet…not _instantly,_ but as quickly as he can be, and Lance has an arm around him for support almost immediately.

            They stumble forward, staring up at the sky as blazing red gemstones crash to the ground like raindrops, a deluge that coats the ground, that sends waves over the water just below the cave entrance. Lance gapes at the sight, but Keith steps forward, eyes narrowing, lips pursing.

            Lance snaps from his stupor the moment Keith tries to let go of him.

            “Hey, hey, hold on here,” Lance says, and pulls Keith back, blocking him from leaving the cave. “We don’t know if these things are dangerous.”

            Instead, _he_ _’s_ the one to take a step forward, hand outstretched, while Keith rolls his eyes from behind him. “So your first move, immediately after telling me that those things could be dangerous, is to do the exact thing you told me not to.”

            “Do as I say and not as I do,” Lance retorts. He doesn’t turn around, and purposely keeps his voice cheeky, so that Keith can’t see the apprehension on his face as he takes another step out of the mouth of the cave, and then another, until his arm is entirely exposed. He finally snatches one of the gemstones out of the air and immediately retreats, clutching it tightly. It’s hot, hotter than the water, and Lance would have dropped it if not for the jumpsuit covering his hand.

            He opens his palm as he and Keith bend their heads down to inspect the gem. It’s not as big as it could be, Lance thinks, but it’s bigger than he’s ever seen in person…on Earth, at least. Other planets, he can’t speak for, because the Balmera? _Huge_ crystals. There are few other gems and stones in the universe that can one-up it.

            The gem itself gleams the same color as the clouds, three-quarters the size of Lance’s palm, all sharp angles and edges, but that’s not the strange thing about it. The strange thing about it is that it seems to glow, brighter than any of the ones outside—especially as Keith’s finger draws closer to poke at it.

            The gears turn in Lance’s head, and Keith must be drawing the same conclusions. His tongue pokes out between his lips, and after a moment of hesitation, Keith takes the gem into his own hand. Lance watches him, prepared to step in the very second things go south.

            At first, nothing happens, but then Keith stumbles backwards, like he’s taken a blow to the chest, and drops the stone. Lance lunges for him and grabs his arm before he can do something bad, like fall and break his skull. Instinct has him pulling Keith against his chest and away from the stone, staring at it with wide eyes.

            “What just happened?” Lance asked, voice shooting up in pitch.

            “I-I’m not sure,” Keith responds, and glances down at the bandages around his leg. “I-I just…I felt this…this surge of energy, I-I don’t know…”

            _Energy?_

            Keith freezes in Lance’s arms, while Lance is deep in thought, and he almost doesn’t notice, until Keith speaks up again. “Red…Red’s trying to tell me something.”

            Red. The very same Red who Keith hadn’t heard from in the two days immediately following the crash, growing more and more worried about it with every passing hour. The same Red they believed—at least, believed until _right this very minute_ —would have to be repaired back at the castleship. That Red.

            “C’mon,” Lance says, and lets go of Keith, stoops down, and picks up their helmets from where they’ve been resting on the cave floor. He hands Keith’s off, and they put them on, and then step out into the gem-rain.

            Lance grips Keith’s arm the whole time, studying the stones carefully. The ones closest to Keith glow, the glow fading as they bounce off of his helmet, or as Keith walks away from them. But the moment of truth is when they stop in front of Red, and find a pile of glowing stones around the Lion. Red’s eyes blaze yellow, the first sign of life since the crash, and Lance hears the low purr when he and Keith approach, and Keith rests a hand against Red’s snout.

            Immediately, his knees buckle.

            Lance holds him up, but Keith isn’t exactly concerned with the fact that he almost just hit the ground.

            “My leg,” he hisses. “Check the— _fuck_ —check the bandage—”

            “Okay, okay,” Lance says, and eases Keith toward the ground until he’s sitting with his leg out. He angles himself, so that he’s taking the brunt of the rain, because whatever these gems are, they’ve got _some_ kind of effect on the Red—

            _Red Paladin._

            Lance’s theory is almost confirmed when he unwraps the bandages (which, the little voice in his head reminds him, are going to need replacing now, and they _just_ changed them, so _that_ was a waste), and sees the flesh of Keith’s wound fucking _moving. Healing._

            His concern for Keith overrides the urge to throw up.

            “Okay,” Lance repeats, sucks in a breath, exhales, “so it looks like…it looks like we might have a solution to our problems after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i said not _all_ of my julance prompts would be klance
> 
> doesn't mean i can't have _some_
> 
> see ya tomorrow!!


	8. viii. carnival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _These stuffed animals were the reason he hadn’t seen the soldier coming._
> 
> Canon-verse*, post-s6. In which the team goes to a carnival on the way back to Earth.
> 
> *In a universe in which Keith and Lance begin dating shortly after the events of s6. At this point, they've been in a relationship for about two weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL SORRY THIS IS LATE
> 
> **trigger warning for canon-typical violence**

## viii. carnival

            Carnivals were not solely limited to Earth grounds, the Paladins had come to find out, and the stop at the sprawling fairgrounds on the planet Belvidina was meant to be a day of relaxation for the Voltron crew, as the Lions recharged, and Coran tinkered a bit with the new castleship.

            Certainly, the day had started out that way, as the group broke off. Krolia remained at the castleship with Coran and the Lions to be his bodyguard, talk with him about anything else she _hadn_ _’t_ been updated on in the months the team spent planet-hopping on the way to Earth, and learn the new castle inside and out. Shiro, too, remained behind, content to take the day to finally _sleep_ after running around for so long. The rest of the Paladins, plus Romelle, took to the fairgrounds, to play games and ride rides and eat all of the food they could.

            Lance, personally, spent the most time playing games—games of accuracy, most of which involved firing some sort of projectile. Within the first hour of wandering the place, Lance had outwitted four different carnies, and carted around no fewer than seven different stuffed animals. He buried some in the drawstring bag he carried, while he had to be a bit more creative with others, tying furry limbs around his neck and waist like a second backpack.

            These stuffed animals were the reason he hadn’t seen the soldier coming.

            Lance hit the ground chest-first as the soldier tackled him from behind. They wasted precious seconds trying to move the head of Lance’s oversized red hippo out of the way so they could press the barrel of their gun against his head, and it was in those seconds Lance summoned his bayard, from the one piece of shiny white armor he wore around his left thigh, over his jeans, like a fashion statement.

            Lance rolled, the hippo throwing the soldier’s balance, and he brought his rifle up and fired. It took one hit to bring the soldier down, and another hit to make sure he wouldn’t be moving again.

            Then Lance was off running.

            Granted, the hippo and his full backpack made things difficult, and painted him as a rather obvious target. But it just proved its worth as a partner in battle, and he was going to use it to his advantage.

            _Gotta warn the others_ _…where_ are _they?_

            Lance received his answer about one of the Paladins about two seconds later, when he threw himself against one of the many structures erected as both a food stand and bathhouse, and found Keith leaning against the wall, fanning himself and watching the other carnivalgoers.

            Or, more precisely, he threw himself directly into Keith.

            Keith yelped as they both hit the ground, and grumbled something about people watching where they’re going before realizing that it was Lance pinning them both to the dirt. Still, he narrowed his eyes as he peered up at Lance, cutting from his face to the hippo on his back.

            “So I guess I know what _you_ _’ve_ been up to all day,” Keith said.

            “Doubt it,” Lance responded.

            If he had the time, he might’ve remarked about the way they were lying on the ground—Keith on his back, and Lance on top of his chest—but he wasn’t sure how long it would be before backup soldiers found him. So he got off of Keith, got to his feet, and then offered Keith a hand.

            “I dunno,” Keith said, taking Lance’s hand, dusting off his pants once he was standing. “Looks like you’ve been up to some sharpshooting.”

            “Yeah, I have,” Lance replied. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Dumbo over here was supposed to be for you, but he’s a pretty good body shield, so I’ve decided I’m keeping him.”

            Keith started to pout, before his face froze, and then his eyebrows knitted in confusion. “Wait, what do you mean body shield?”

            “Galra soldier tried to kill me, no big deal,” Lance answered, and took Keith’s hand again, like he _wasn_ _’t_ explaining his near-death. He glanced over his shoulder—so far, so good.

            “Lance?”

            Keith had followed his gaze, and Lance could pinpoint the moment that his guard went up. His eyes darted back and forth, and he leaned forward again, trying and failing to seem as nonchalant as Lance, as he swung their hands between them, like they were no more than a couple trying to enjoy—

            _Bingo._

            “What the hell do you mean a Galra soldier tried to kill you?” Keith whispered, and once again, his eyes cut to the side, to a cluster of aliens of various races all clamoring to get on some ride, while Lance pulled him away.

            “Oh, y’know, just a sneak attack. Tackled me from behind, and Dumbo saved my life. Took me no time at all to summon my bayard because of this bad boy.” Lance patted his singular piece of thigh armor.

            That, Keith couldn’t help but roll his eyes at. “It still looks ridiculous.”

            “I’ll take looking ridiculous over being dead any day,” Lance retorted, and squeezed Keith’s hand. “You’d think you’d be thinking the same way.”

            Keith flushed, and his voice dropped. “Of course I think that.”

            “Good. Then you’ll follow my plan to find Pidge, Hunk, Allura, and Romelle, and get us all out of here in one piece. _And_ we can take out soldiers at the same time,” Lance said.

            He pulled Keith along, trying his best to look eager to partake in the festivities at hand, and not like he was plotting several murders and an escape. Keith fell into step alongside him, an awkward smile forced upon his face. Lance would give him points for at least _trying_ to appear relaxed and like he was having a good time.

            “Where are we going?” Keith asked, voice high.

            Lance snorted. “Alright, don’t be so dramatic, Mullet. We’re going to the Ferris Wheel. Or whatever they call it here.” He squinted, trying to read the sign in the distance, high above the rest of the park. “The Circular Spinner…or something. I dunno. But _we_ know what it is. Anyway. Gives us a full view of the park, and I can use my bayard to shoot from there.”

            He said the last part quietly as they wove through crowds, shooting dazzling smiles at other carnivalgoers, stopping every once and a while to sign an autograph. Every time someone stopped them, or a child recognized them and yelled out that there were _Paladins, mama!_ , the hair on the back of Lance’s neck stood up, and Keith always tensed beside him.

            More than once, Lance’s hand twitched down to his side, to summon his bayard.

            By the time they made it to the front of the line for the Ferris Wheel, they were jittery and jumpy, and couldn’t relax until their seat was off the ground, and halfway up the wheel. They spent the trip up scanning the ground below—Lance’s eyes locking onto Pidge and Hunk in the line for some other ride, and Keith finding Allura and Romelle wandering around with cotton candy in hand.

            Both of them spotted soldiers, sparse in number, dotting the crowds.

            “Can you hit any of them from here?” Keith whispered, and Lance’s bayard finally materialized in his hand.

            Lance nodded, and brought his rifle up to his shoulder, one narrowed eye peering through the scope.

            Then he frowned and lowered it, as the cart got moving again.

            “I can _hit them_ , if none of the other citizens move. I mean, I can probably hit them even if people _are_ moving, I did it with Slav this one time when he was freaking out, but…it’s risky. And then it draws attention to us. And I’d rather get visuals on all of them up here, regroup with the team, and then maybe do something about it. I’m not about to mess this up—”

            “Lance.”

            Keith placed a hand over Lance’s, on top of his rifle, and Lance met his gaze.

            “You’re fine. You’re not gonna mess anything up. And that’s a good plan,” Keith said. “Probably better than trying to pick them off from up here. So we’ll do what you said: regroup with the others and make a plan. Maybe we can lure them out of the crowd, or something.”

            He leaned back in the seat, and intertwined his finger’s with Lance’s, while Lance’s pulse raced. He let his bayard dematerialize, back into his thigh armor.

            “For now,” Keith added, “we can just…enjoy this. You know, since the whole trip was for us to relax and have fun.”

            _Relax._ Lance wasn’t sure he would ever truly relax in Keith’s presence, not with his heart jackhammering, but he could try his best.

            “Sure,” he replied. “Guess we can do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 9 comin sometime in the next 12-14 hours hopefully, and then day 10 soon after...hOPEFULLY


	9. ix. good enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Okay,” he whispers, to himself more than anything. “You can do it. This is your moment.”_
> 
> Canon-divergent at the beginning of s3. AU in which Black chooses a different Paladin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao sorry this one is short
> 
> workin on day 10 rn

## ix. good enough

            Lance is certain he can do this, up until it’s his turn.

            Every step with his swaggering gait is another step he’s sure he’s going to crash to the ground, because his legs feel less like legs and more like Jell-O, but if he wipes out on the gangway up into Black’s cockpit, then there’s no way he’ll be chosen at all. But on the bright side, that’s three Paladins down. He’s up now, and if this doesn’t work…all that’s left is Keith.

            The person Shiro wanted to be his successor.

            _Not now, Lance. This is your time,_ Lance reminds himself, and makes it up the boarding ramp without face-planting. He pauses, as he spies the back of the pilot’s chair, like something is waiting on the other side. A trap, seconds away from being sprung. Lance drops the swagger and slows down as he approaches the seat, braces one hand on the back of it. Runs fingers along the metal and space leather.

            Almost reverently, he eases himself into the seat, wraps fingers around the levers at his sides. He rolls his shoulders, gives the levers a squeeze, and shuts his eyes.

            “Okay,” he whispers, to himself more than anything. “You can do it. This is your moment.”

            For a moment or two, nothing happens, and every passing second is agonizing, a weight that grows heavier on his shoulders, and his fingers tighten.

            Then, almost like a lightning strike, Lance _feels_ it. A current runs through him, a sudden lightness seizing his chest. His eyes fly open as the cockpit comes to life, glowing violet, and Black’s engine revs. Then the Lion _moves_ , not nearly as graceful and controlled as Blue. This is something else, something that demands attention. Demands obedience. Lance holds tight to the levers as Black gets on her haunches and roars, the sound reverberating through the hangar.

            Then she gets back down and opens up her exit once more, the controls still aglow when Lance rises from his seat on shaking legs and starts down the gangway.

            This time, he _does_ collapse.

            The team is upon him in seconds, strong arms lifting him up from the back—Hunk, it must be Hunk—while Keith and Pidge each stand in front of him, hands out and ready to catch him if he pitches forward again. Allura jogs up behind them, Coran following suit, and Keith and Pidge clear the way.

            She’s smiling at Lance, a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

            “Congratulations, Lance,” she says. “It appears Black has chosen _you_ to be her pilot.”

            Lance swallows thickly and nods, struggling to remain on his feet. Luckily, Hunk still holds him up, as he takes his helmet off and runs a hand through his hair, and finds that his glove comes away covered in sweat. Had he been sweating? Had he really been that nervous?

            “Uh, yeah,” Lance says.

            Several things occur to him at once: he’s Black’s pilot now. He— _he_ _’s_ the leader of Team Voltron. Which means Blue’s out of a pilot, so _someone_ _’s_ gotta take over for him, and he’ll need to hand over the bayard, because the black one, that’s _his_ now. And then there’s _Keith,_ Shiro’s choice of successor. The person who never even got to _try_.

            Lance looks at him, searches his face for any trace of bitterness or contempt, but Keith gives him a genuine smile. A _relieved_ smile.

            “She made a good choice,” Keith says, and reaches out, and squeezes his shoulder. “It’s who I would’ve chosen, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see y'all before midnight hopefully


	10. x. family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _For the most part, Lance coped with being a Paladin by drawing constant comparisons between his life and those of the heroes in his favorite action movies. It never meant he wanted to die like one of them._
> 
>  
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6. Lance sustains a severe injury during a battle in the Garrison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woooo got some trigger warnings for this one
> 
> **trigger warning for gore, injury, death/dead bodies, blood, vomit, and violence. _THERE IS NO MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH._**

## x. family

            For the most part, Lance coped with being a Paladin by drawing constant comparisons between his life and those of the heroes in his favorite action movies. It never meant he wanted to die like one of them.

            By now, the firefight has long since stopped. Nobody’s come back for his body—then again, who would? He’s hunched over himself in a corner, hands tight over his bleeding gut, surrounded by dead bodies. Soldiers, rebels. Citizens. Bile burns the back of Lance’s throat as his gaze sweeps the area, and he finds _children_ among the dead. Fucking _kids._ Some younger than his niece and nephew, and tears sting Lance’s eyes. How did they even end up out here? Is his _own_ family okay?

            _Please, please, they have to be._

            He knew it the moment they touched down on Earth, the moment Iverson scanned over the team and his face screwed up in disdain, and Lance was the only one to detect something else. Something a little more sinister underneath it. He should have _told_ someone, should have _voiced his fucking concerns_ , but now he’s dying in a corner of the Garrison. He’s dying and he’s not going to be found until it’s too late, because his helmet’s all the way across the room and the visor’s cracked and his comms are shot anyway—

            “Lance? Oh my God, _Dios mio, hermano, what did you do—?_ ”

            Oh, even better.

            He’s bleeding to death, surrounded by dead people, and hallucinating his sister running toward him in one of the ugly orange-white-gray pilot uniforms, a uniform he once dreamed of wearing, a uniform he couldn’t be paid to wear again, but then again, he’ll never have the chance…

            “Lancito, look at me, mírame—Lance, _please_ —”

            Are you supposed to physically feel hallucinations? Lance isn’t sure. Because he can definitely feel Veronica’s fingers on his face as she crashes to her knees next to him, can feel the way one hand wraps around his wrist and pulls it away from his wound. She inhales, sharp and sudden, and then she’s speaking into some comm on her wrist, and Lance isn’t sure where she got it from, but then again, she’s a hallucination, so anything’s possible.

            “Lance,” she says urgently. “Stay with me here, okay? Help’s on the way. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

            Lance nods. Closes his eyes as nauseating pain rolls over him. Keeping his eyes closed prevents the room from spinning, but his hallucination-sister apparently doesn’t like that.

            “Nononono,” she says, and lightly smacks his face a few times. “C’mon, tiburón, mírame.”

            Lance groans and squints at her. She hasn’t gone away. He blinks. She’s still there, face drawn with worry. “R-Ronnie…?”

            “If you die on me,” Veronica says, and the hand around his wrist tightens, “Mamá will kill the both of us. And we’ve got a planet to save.”

            “W-We…?”

            Lance’s brain’s going into that weird fuzzy state that he hates, the same one it was in when he took the brunt of the bomb for Coran, the one he was in moments before he died saving Allura. His eyes burn again, and this time, something wet and warm slides down his face.

            “Yes, _we_ , genio,” Veronica responds, voice wavering slightly.

            It’s at that moment other footsteps pound the floor, loud in the otherwise-silent room. The ground shakes—Lance can feel each vibration, and it’s not helping the whole nausea thing, if he’s honest. Neither do the voices that start shouting, that start speaking so quickly Lance can’t keep up when his brain’s in this fog. His vision is blurry when he looks beyond Veronica. He can make out two more of the uniforms she’s wearing, plus red and pink and green and yellow and black.

            The other Paladins, plus…

            _Oh, God._

            Marco and Luis.

            All three of his siblings are here in Garrison pilot uniforms. All three of them are here to witness his final moments. At the very least, they’ll be able to tag-team when they’re telling Mamá, when it becomes too much for one of them to handle, and more tears slide down Lance’s face. He’ll never get to tell her himself that he’s sorry, that he wishes he could’ve been stronger.

            And he can’t even get a moment alone to grieve for himself and for the suffering his family’s going to have to go through once he passes. More people come near Lance, crowd him, _suffocate him_ —

            “Get him away from the wall,” someone says, voice strained, and there are pairs of hands pulling on his arms, while Veronica warns them to _watch the injury, it_ _’s worse than it looks, oh and also he’s delirious, I think._

            He ends up in someone’s lap, and someone’s squeezing his hand, and—dark hair, red—

            “Aw, we’re having—” Lance pauses to wheeze, and the lips on the face above him quiver “—ha-having another bonding m-moment.”

            “Yeah, and you’re gonna remember this one,” Keith snaps, but it’s a half-hearted snap at best, because his voice is even worse off than Veronica’s was, and there are tears in his eyes, and Lance just gives him a weak smile and closes—

            “Lance!” Veronica shouts at him again.

            _I_ _’m so tired, please…_

            “Anyone got a med kit?” Hunk’s voice is quivering too, and _damn, how many of them are close to crying? Why are they even crying over_ me _?_

            “Right here. Lance, open your fucking eyes, or so help me, I’ll get Mamá in here to _make_ you keep them open,” Marco says, and he sounds so _casual_ about it that Lance laughs, and hacks up blood. The hand around his tightens, a death-grip— _heh, ironic_ —while Lance rolls to the side and spits it on the ground. It’s already pretty slick and red, it’s not like he’s doing much damage anyway.

            “Allura, we’re gonna need you in here,” Keith chokes out.

            Great, there’s another set of knees next to Lance. Allura’s alongside Marco, and Marco has to pry Lance’s other hand away from the wound, and orders Hunk to grab that one so Lance can’t put it back, and then calls for Pidge and Luis to hold down his legs, _because it might hurt a lot, and he_ _’s a kicker._ Then he tells Veronica and Shiro to guard this like their lives depend on it, because yeah, theirs are riding on this, too, but Lance’s especially.

            “You’re gonna be okay, do you understand me?” Marco says, and pokes Lance in the side until Lance meets his eyes. Marco’s are watery too, _what the fuck._ “Four McClain kids walked into this thing, and all four are walking out. We’ve gotta be home for dinner.”

            “S-Sorry,” Lance mutters, and rolls his head to the side again, to cough up more blood.

            “Marco, we need to act quickly,” Allura interjects.

            “M-Man,” Lance giggles out, “what I wouldn’t g-give for a h-healing pod right now…”

            “That’s right, Lance, keep talking,” Hunk says encouragingly. “Keep your eyes open, buddy. Look at Keith.”

            Look at Keith—why Keith? Why not—oh, that’s why not.

            “Shit, _shit_ , roll him over!”

            Keith and Hunk push Lance over just in time for Lance to puke, and he makes himself a mental note to yes, look at Keith’s face, and no, don’t look at his injury, because _wow,_ it _is_ worse than he imagined.

            “Shiro, get water, _now_ ,” Marco calls. “Ronnie, keep holding that door. Nothing gets in or out.”

            “Gotcha.”

            Lance keeps obeying his orders, keeps focusing on Keith as Shiro passes the Black Paladin a water bottle, and Keith sits Lance up slightly, brings the bottle to his lips, and orders him to take a few sips, because he won’t the drop the bottle until he has and _so help me, Lance, just—just drink the fucking water._

            And he does. It’s nice, cool against his throat. Keith draws back the bottle, but keeps Lance sitting up until he’s sure Lance will hold it down.

            “Alright, I’m going in,” Marco mutters. “Lance, if you die, I’m gonna have Allura resurrect you, you got it? That way I can kill you myself.”

            Lance gives another wheezing laugh, closes his eyes—and Keith smacks him in the face again, until he opens them.

            “Y-Yeah, sure,” he coughs out.

            And true to everything Marco assumed, the procedure is painful as hell. Lance strains against the people holding him back, struggles to hold Keith’s gaze. His vision blacks out several times, crowding with dark spots, and bright bursts of color that he’s certain— _certain, this time_ —aren’t there. He nearly gets one leg free, and almost kicks Pidge in the head before she can wrestle it back to the ground.

            “C’mon, Lance, stay awake,” Keith murmurs to him several times throughout the whole thing. “You’ve gotta see the rest of your family again, don’t you?”

            He wants to nod. Wants to say yes. But he can’t do it anymore—Marco does _something,_ and when the darkness washes over his vision like the tide upon the shore, it never rolls back out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he's not dead he's just resting :) when he wakes up the team celebrates and then everyone goes off to win the war and they win and keith and lance confess their love and the team hangs out on earth w lance's fam and he gets all the love he deserves the end :)
> 
> ~~i mean, if u want him to die, by all means...go ahead? i guess? but the way i envision it he just passes out :)~~
> 
> see you tomorrowww


	11. xi. blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Much like one never forgets their first love, one never forgets their first Lion, either._
> 
> Canon-verse/canon-divergent, probably between s5 and s6. Allura and Lance go to answer a distress signal on a nearby planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mental notes as i wrote this chapter  
> -sometimes i really really really fucking love lance's pov  
> -lance's pov is 10x more fun when lotor is in the room bc this boy won't stop roasting him  
> -i will forever be bitter that "nobody listens to lance even when his points are valid" happens about 90% of the time in canon  
> -writing pidge and hunk jabbing at him physically hurt my soul but _it's apparently fucking canon so_
> 
> anyway here's the chapter

## xi. blue

            So maybe Lance isn’t the team’s best.

            He’s not their tech genius. He’s got no hacking skills. He loves science, yeah, and math was okay, but his grades at the Garrison always seemed to speak otherwise, where as people like Hunk and Pidge seemed to be born with an affinity for numbers and calculations and formulas in their blood. He’s not the best pilot, either—he’s no Shiro or Keith. And he’s not alien royalty, but Allura and Coran and…nope, Lance won’t say his name, because fuck that guy…have the team covered in that department.

            But there’s something to be said for his intuition.

            Maybe it’s that he left behind a big family, and maybe his siblings didn’t always pay the best attention. Maybe it’s years of social cues big and small hardwired into his brain. Maybe it’s every last science fiction and action movie he’s watched. Or maybe it’s plain and simple _common fucking sense_ that you don’t answer a distress call in a sketchy star system on this galaxy’s answer to Hoth.

            “Guys, I don’t know about this,” Lance says, gazing at the blinking red light on the star map in front of them. “Something really doesn’t feel right about this.”

            “We’re fighting a war in space,” Pidge deadpans from somewhere behind him, and Lance resists the urge to turn around and shoot a scowl in her direction. “I don’t think anything feels _right_ anymore.”

            “Somebody out there needs our help,” Allura says, and levels placid eyes at Lance. “As Paladins of Voltron, we’re duty-bound to help if it’s in our capacity, which it very well is.”

            “Ah, not quite,” Coran calls from where he stands, in front of his own control panel, and Lance very nearly cheers right there. At least _someone_ _’s_ got his back. But his face falls, as Coran goes on: “It’s in the capacity of _one_ Lion. Those temperatures, along with the snow and ice, will render most of our technology useless. The _Blue_ Lion, however, should have no problem getting in and out.”

            And then Coran realizes what he’s said. Who currently pilots the Blue Lion, as his gaze darts between Lance and Allura.

            “This still doesn’t sit well with me,” Lance says. “Like, remember the last time we answered a sketchy distress signal? I got chained to a tree, and the Blue Lion got, oh yeah, _stolen_.”

            “Because you were too busy flirting with Nyma,” Pidge points out.

            Lance flushes. “ _Still_ —”

            “Rolo and Nyma may have tricked us then,” Shiro interrupts, “but in the time since, they’ve proven to be valuable allies. Yes, this could be dangerous, but the reward could be even greater than the risk. And I’m sure Allura will be fine, won’t you, Princess?”

            There’s something in the way he says _princess_ that has Lance on edge, but he keeps quiet. Fixes his gaze on Allura, and keeps a careful eye on Lotor, who hovers behind her, with an arm around her waist like they weren’t trying to kill each other a month ago.

            Allura doesn’t seem to detect anything amiss.

            “Yes,” she says. “Although, going alone…”

            “I’ll go,” Lance says, and doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse for the daggers he sends Lotor’s way, while Lotor raises his eyebrows, and sets his mouth in a neutral line. Before anyone can protest, Lance continues: “If something goes wrong, none of the other Lions can get down there without being in danger, but at least, both of us can pilot Blue. Y’know, in case one of _us_ goes down.”

            _Not to mention, I can fight close-range and long-range, and I don_ _’t trust the grape over there to go down with her,_ Lance doesn’t add.

            What Lotor doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

            Lance sweeps his eyes around the room. No one raises any objections, and Allura’s actually _smiling_ at his suggestion, so he’ll take his win while he still can.

            “Alright!” Coran says, and clasps his hands. “We’re within range of Umiz’nai, so Allura, Lance, this would be an excellent time for you to head out. We’ll all be watching from here, and if something should go wrong, well!” He strides away from his control panel, long enough to come to Lance’s side and clap him on the shoulder. “I trust the two of you will be able to make the right calls!”

            “As long as Lance doesn’t start flirting,” Pidge mutters with a smirk, and Hunk snickers.

            “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Lance responds sharply. He turns to Allura. “You ready?”

            Allura nods and smiles, and then turns away from Lance, long enough to look at Lotor. They exchange words too quiet to hear, one of Lotor’s hands gently caressing her face.

            “Barf,” Lance whispers to Coran, while Coran gags.

            Still, Lance makes himself watch, crossing his arms as Lotor and Allura finish with whatever goodbyes they’re giving each other. Once they’re done, Lotor lets her go, and Allura walks up to Lance’s side, and then waves a hand, gesturing him to follow, like he doesn’t know the way to Blue’s hangar. As if he’d ever forget.

            Much like one never forgets their first love, one never forgets their first Lion, either.

            Still, it’s not his Lion anymore, and that’s why Lance doesn’t object to letting Allura take the lead. Princess, Blue Paladin—in this case, she’s got double the authority on him as they take the long way to Blue’s hangar, instead of heading down the elevator and zipline. The walk is silent, the air charged, and Lance makes no move to break up the quiet, to clear the air.

            The moment they set foot in Blue’s hangar, her energy nearly knocks Lance over. It’s cool and fluid and rolls over him like an ocean wave, so different from the heat and twisting flames he’s used gotten used to from Red. And yet, Blue’s sensation is familiar, comforting, and it almost feels like she’s welcoming him back. Not like before—not like when she shut him out, when that particle barrier went up and never—

            _Stop it,_ Lance reminds himself.

            It’s not like he stopped being a Paladin. He was just needed in Red more. The new Black Paladin needed a new right hand, and it just happened to be him. Blue had just nudged him in the right direction. Well, okay, not _nudged._ More like shoved, because he’d be lying if he said it didn’t hurt, not being able to get past her walls like before.

            But this is different. She opens up for him— _them, and mostly for Allura, you_ _’re just tagging along_ —and Lance walks up the gangway behind Allura, uncertainty in each step, like he’s waiting for some invisible force to throw him back. He watches Allura sit down in the pilot’s seat, watches the control panel light up for her, and feels guilty for the twinge of jealousy that ensues. He’s proud of her—truly, he is—but he still can’t help the longing that comes with being back in this cockpit for the first time in forever.

            Allura glances back at him, and he doesn’t even notice until she calls his name.

            “Lance?”

            “Oh, s-sorry.” Lance snaps back to reality. “Uh, did-did you say something?”

            Allura furrows her brow. “I asked if you were ready to go.”

            “Oh, yeah!” Lance flaps his hand. “Psh, I’m always ready.”

            Allura might roll her eyes at that, but Lance isn’t sure, because she turns forward again, away from him, and he lets his shoulders drop. He leans against the back of the pilot’s seat and observes as Blue leaves her hangar and flies out into open space, the planet glowing softly before them. It’s pure white, although the glow is a baby blue, likely from the chill the planet exudes.

            _“Allura, Lance, I’m uploading the coordinates the signal came from right now.”_ Coran’s face appears on a screen to Lance and Allura’s left, although he’s not looking at them, too preoccupied with the task at hand.

            “Thank you, Coran,” Allura replies, while Lance just makes a noise of agreement.

            Blue’s front window illuminates, as a grid appears over the planet. A red blip blinks onto the screen, not too far from their current location. Allura eases the left lever forward, and Blue turns in the direction of the dot, and then dives into the cloud-cover.

            For a moment, their windows are nothing but white, with the occasional tinge of gray, but then, Blue breaks through the last of the clouds. Allura frowns at the frozen wasteland that materializes below them, ice and snow and rock. Harsh winds blow more snow into their windows, flakes skittering and splattering across their view.

            “I don’t see any buildings…any people,” Allura whispers, and then drops her gaze to the controls. She pulls up a holopad on her right and taps a few keys, and energy signatures shimmer into existence. Structures outlined in blue, buried beneath the snow…but no energy signatures for _people_.

            “Uh…are you guys seeing this?” Lance asks, directed toward the feed of the castleship.

            _“Well, this is troubling,”_ Coran remarks.

            _“Maybe they heard you were coming,”_ Pidge calls, and this time, Lance allows himself to scowl. He’ll take solace in that, at the very least, Coran also appears annoyed with her words, and it’s enough for now.

            “We can sweep the whole area, but—”

            A crackle cuts Allura off as the comms suddenly buzz and die, and the video feed on their left disappears. A new one appears in their front window, and Allura brings Blue to a halt. Lance bristles, hand tightening around the back of Allura’s chair as the Galra commander in the center of the feed smiles at them, eyes full of malice.

            _“Well, our little experiment worked, I’d say,”_ the commander remarks. _“And what’s this?_ Two _Paladins for the price of one?_ _”_

            Blue’s cockpit lights suddenly fade to red, warning sirens blaring loud enough to make Lance jump, while Allura wraps her fingers tightly around the levers at her sides. Behind the feed, in each of the windows, Galra ships poof into existence, and Lance gapes, because Blue’s technology picked up on exactly _none_ of them. This is cloaking on a level comparable with whatever Pidge rigged up in Green, and it nauseates Lance, especially when he realizes they’re surrounded—and right on top of their red dot.

            A Galra prison ship.

            Each of the ships, though, looks different from what Lance is used to. The metal’s different, that’s for sure, and they’re built differently. They must be new, specially designed so that their tech can withstand the subzero temperatures, the snowstorms…

            “Allura, we’ve gotta go,” Lance says quietly, staring out at each of the ships. They’re all equipped with laser cannons, ion cannons…and one hit will be enough to destroy them. They don’t have armor like the Yellow Lion, or even the Black Lion.

            Thing is…there’s nowhere to go. They don’t have the speed and maneuverability of the Red Lion, or the petite size of the Green Lion, to confuse and dodge around the ships.

            _“You’re not going anywhere,”_ the commander says, and laughs, like the idea that they’d even _try_ to escape is a joke.  _“All ships, move in. Take them alive, and try not to damage the Lion…too badly.”_

            Oh, alive. That’s nice.

            Fucked up, but nice, as three ships open fire from three different directions. The Galra must have fired some kind of disruptor, because Blue’s entire system blinks out, and almost immediately, the Lion enters freefall. Allura thrusts her levers uselessly, while Lance clings to the chair to avoid being thrown into the side control panels. To their credit, neither of them scream, as Blue smashes headfirst into the snow, blotting out the light entirely.

            “Aw, great,” Lance mutters under his breath, switching on night vision. No gravity stabilizers means Lance remains clinging to the chair, while Allura peels herself off of the window, groaning as she attempts to shake off the impact.

            Even through his armor, Lance can already feel the temperature inside of Blue dropping. They wouldn’t last for very long outside of the cockpit, which means, hopefully, that the Galra are the same way. Which means, when the Galra come for them—

            _Hey, no. No getting captured. Not allowed._

            Lance mentally chastises himself for even thinking that way, and there’s a stirring at the back of his mind. Dormant, for a long time, but now…

            _Hey, girl. Good to see you, too. I_ _’m not letting them take you anywhere._

            “Did you notice if any of those ships had tractor beams on them?” Lance asks, then, and Allura nods.

            “Several. I don’t understand what’s taking them so long to come for us, to be completely honest,” she says, and then frowns. Again. And then Lance frowns, because he knows _that_ frown. He’s worn it often enough himself.

            “Well, we just gotta take advantage of it, then,” he says, and forces a smile to his face that he hopes seems genuine enough, as he summons his bayard. “If they’re gonna take their sweet time, we’re gonna be ready for them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> debating whether or not to follow this one up in another prompt, or give it its own full-fledged oneshot or shortfic
> 
> idk
> 
> see y'all tomorrow


	12. xii. red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If this were a movie, Lance thinks to himself, this is the time when the main character would let their guard drop, right before something pops out and tries to kill them._
> 
> Canon-divergent, pre-s3e5. In which the team, under Keith's leadership and along with Matt, Nyma, and Rolo, investigates a Galra base prisoners have recently been liberated from, and Lance and Keith stumble upon something they wish they hadn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yep so basically this is an au in which the toy company _didn't fuckin force the writers to bring shiro back and fuck up what could've been a beautiful team dynamic_. aka keith's the black paladin, lance is red, allura's blue, pidge's green, and hunk's yellow, and the team finds matt and his rebels long before they find shiro. kuron. i dunno. guess there's really not a shiro to find.
> 
> ANYWAY
> 
> **trigger warning for graphic violence and injury ft. blood**

## xii. red

            The base they’re supposed to be infiltrating is massive.

            Lance’s eyes sweep over the sprawling mess of hallways they’ve got to investigate, heart sinking to the pit of his stomach, while his blood turns to ice in his veins. This is an obvious trap, that he knows for sure. Their main destination lies in the heart of the base—a lab that a slew of prisoners was recently rescued from by Matt’s rebel group.

            “You sure this is the place?” Keith asks Matt, and seven heads swivel in the older Holt’s direction.

            Matt nods tersely, staring at a holographic map projecting out of a small device in his hand. His eyes are hard, like he’s remembering things he shouldn’t and doesn’t want to. At that, Keith sucks in a breath, and turns on his heel to face the other four Paladins, plus Matt, Rolo, and Nyma.

            “The only way we’re gonna cover this place is by splitting up,” he says. “Rolo, Hunk, you two are on the southern sector. Matt, Pidge, you’re northern. Nyma, Allura, I want you two in the western. Lance, you’re in the east with me.”

            Lance does his best not to still when he realizes that of all of the Paladins, he’s the only one Keith didn’t pair off with a rebel. No, Keith’s paired Lance with _him_.

            Lance tries to tell himself that it’s nothing. He’s Keith’s right hand now, and as such, this sort of thing should be expected. There’s no deeper meaning to this—Keith’s the leader, and of course he’d want Lance with him for this. Obviously. It’s just what _makes sense._ The Red Paladin supports the Black Paladin. Done. Nothing more.

            His heart races anyway.

            “If it looks like things are too dangerous, tell the group and evacuate as soon as you can,” Keith goes on, entirely oblivious to Lance’s internal screaming. “Otherwise, we don’t leave until we’ve got the info.”

            Their mission: get to that lab and find out what the hell’s being done to the prisoners, and swipe whatever they can. Serums, records—anything that might be useful, and might point to whatever the shocked prisoners had been muttering about when they were rescued. Whatever’s in there can’t be good, Lance knows. Not from the looks he saw on the prisoners’ faces, from the way they couldn’t bring themselves to speak of it.

            Unless they couldn’t speak of it because they have no _memories_ of whatever went on in the lab, a theory Lance hasn’t brought up to anyone, but keeps tucked away, close to his chest.

            “Alright,” Keith says, dragging Lance out of his thoughts. “We don’t want to waste time. Let’s move.”

            With that, the Paladins break off. The northern and eastern sides are the two furthest sectors of the base, and though going down the middle and passing _through_ the lab is the quickest, most obvious way through, it’s also the most _dangerous_ , and they _also_ can’t risk leaving any stone unturned.

            That’s how, within a matter of minutes, Lance finds himself alone with Keith.

            He clutches his rifle tightly, safety off. He aims the barrel at the ground for now, as he and Keith slink through the halls, sticking as close to the shadows as they can. This particular stretch of hallway is deserted, mostly, although Lance catches the odd camera or two, each tracking their progress. Of course, none of these feeds are getting back to…well, wherever they’re feeding to. Pidge disabled them before they even entered—each one should be streaming empty corridors back to the source.

            “What do you think’s in that lab?” Lance asks. His voice is a whisper, and it _still_ seems too loud.

            “Something bad, probably,” Keith mutters, and holds a hand up as he peers around a corner. Lance presses in next to him, against the wall, and doesn’t move until Keith waves him on, and then lets his arm drop.

            They trek on, each hall seemingly emptier than the last, even though such a thing isn’t _possible._ But the quiet grows, every time they turn a corner, and maybe it’s Lance’s eyes tricking him, but it also seems to get _darker_ , until Keith stops them again, and fights off a growl.

            “I don’t like this,” he grunts. “Turn on your night vision and _stay close_.”

            Lance hates the way his heart skips a beat. He’s Keith’s _teammate._ He’d say the same thing to any of the others.

            _Hey, you_ _’re on a mission here, stop that,_ Lance snaps at the little demon voice in the back of his head, as he switches his visor to night vision mode.

            He keeps firmly by Keith’s side as he leads them on. The team never speaks over the comms, neither to say they’ve found something nor to warn the team that they need to leave _now._ No echoes from other parts of the base—no distant pops of gunfire, no screaming or yelling, no crashes or thuds or bangs.

            _If this were a movie,_ Lance thinks to himself, _this is the time when the main character would let their guard drop, right before something pops out and tries to kill them._

            So he does the opposite, which, paranoid as he is, and not very willing to die before he ever sees Earth again, isn’t hard to do. His eyes dart from side to side as he and Keith walk, and he glances over his shoulder every so often, just to be certain they’re not being followed. And, of course, he continually tries to see further down the corridor, into the dark void of seeming nothing that lies ahead.

            “Anyone got an update?” Keith chooses then to murmur over the comms, as he and Lance draw up short at a four-way intersection, and they both pull up their map on their visors.

            _“That’d be a negative,”_ Hunk replies. _“This place is like a freaking_ ghost town. _Anyone else getting the creeps, or is that just me?_ _”_

            “Not just you, buddy,” Lance responds. “This whole thing screams _trap_ to me. I feel like we’re being watched.”

            _“Yeah, we are, by_ me. _I hijacked the cameras, remember?_ _”_ Pidge interjects, and Lance shakes his head, before he realizes Pidge can’t see him—but Keith sees him, and…is he smirking? Is that little shit _smirking?_

            “Not what I _meant_ , but _alright_ , Pidgeotto,” Lance says. “So no one sees anything?”

            _“Empty,”_ Allura confirms.

            _“Anyone tried scanning for energy signatures?”_ Hunk asks.

            _“Matt’s scanning the whole place now,”_ Pidge answers, _“but so far, everything’s coming up blank—wait, wait, we’re—no, that’s us—_ no, that’s not us _—Keith, Lance, there_ _’s something…someone? I don’t know. Continue straight through the intersection, and then the first left that comes up. Be careful. I-I have no idea what that is.”_

            “It’s trouble, that’s what,” Keith mutters under his breath, before responding, more loudly, “Alright, thanks, Pidge. We’re heading to check it out now.”

            Is it common sense to _not_ head toward obvious danger? Yes. But they’re also Paladins, and half the job description is walking headfirst into obvious danger. That’s why they’re the defenders of the universe—they take care of the trouble so that citizens don’t have to.

            “You ready?” Keith asks, glancing at Lance.

            “Uh…honestly, not really, but it doesn’t look like we’ve got much of a choice,” Lance answers, and hoists his bayard. “May as well get going.”

            So they do. Keith takes the lead, sword raised, and Lance falls into step behind him, even though it’s been made clear, thanks to Matt, that nothing should be coming up to attack their six. Can’t be too careful—especially not when it’s his duty, as the right hand, to protect the leader…and not when he has his own personal reasons for protecting _Keith._

            “Be prepared for a fight,” Keith warns, voice low. Lance doesn’t have it in him to let Keith know that he’s stating the obvious.

            “Be careful,” Lance murmurs back. “If things get dicey, we _run._ You hear me? I already don’t like the feeling I have. I feel like there’s something we’re overlooking.”

            “Yeah, yeah—”

            “No, _seriously._ ”

            Lance grasps Keith’s wrist, dragging them both to a halt as Keith turns around to look at him. Lance’s eyes are hard, insistent, shining with worry. It’s maybe the most transparent Lance will allow himself to be.

            “You told the team yourself, if things look too bad, we _leave._ The team needs you, especially. You can’t get reckless now,” Lance says. “I— _we_ don’t want to see you hurt. _None_ of us want to see any of the _others_ hurt, you get me?”

            Keith holds his gaze for what Lance considers far too long before his eyes drop, and he nods. “I-I get it, Lance. I promise. Now, we’ve gotta move.”

            Lance releases his grip, and Keith turns around, and they press on. They follow Pidge’s directions, and pass through the intersection—Lance sees _nothing_ down any of the halls; not left, not right, not forward and not back—without trouble. His ears are fine-tuned, now, to the sounds coming through the base.

            They pick up on _something_ shortly before the turn Pidge described.

            Lance grabs Keith’s wrist again and _squeezes,_ and Keith must understand. Doesn’t say a word. Lance takes a step forward, and motions for Keith to be the one to stay back this time, because evidently, Keith hasn’t heard anything. Or if he has, he has no plans to investigate before going in. Yeah, _fuck that,_ that’s how they’ll die.

            Lance peers around the corner, hand tight around the handle of his gun, and his breath catches in his throat.

            He can’t make out much, beyond the shadow, mostly because the shadow’s _fucking huge._ Its back is hunched, and it’s about four times the size of Laika, the yupper Lance once tried to bust out of Beta Traz. Lance realizes that the sound he heard was the beast _breathing,_ heavy and menacing and _there_ _’s no fucking way they’re staying here._

            He could try shooting it, maybe, but something tells him that even if his shot is clean and straight through the head—is that thing its head?—it’ll still take more than one to bring it down, and in that time that takes, the beast could come bearing down on him. Its hands— _those are its hands, right?_ —are about as tall and wide as Shiro. One swipe would be enough to bring any Paladin down, and he’s not the most buff Paladin out there, and for all his training, neither’s Keith.

            They’ll need the whole team, probably, but calling them all here will definitely attract it, and Lance doesn’t think they’ll live long enough to see the rest of the team come this way if they’re attacked.

            So Lance draws back around the corner, eyes wide with terror, and slowly shakes his head at Keith. He uses his free hand to draw a line across his throat, and hold a finger to his lips. Keith’s brow furrows, momentarily, before he gently pushes Lance aside to get a look for himself.

            Lance pinpoints the moment Keith freezes up, his head slowly tilting as he takes in the monstrosity before them.

            Then Keith slowly backs around the corner, gives Lance a nod, and grabs his hand.

            Then he’s off running.

            Lance stumbles after him, wincing with every loud slap of his feet against metal, because like _that_ isn’t a dead giveaway that someone’s in the base. It’s a shame, really, that he has _that_ to take into consideration, because now he has no time to process the fact that _he_ _’s holding Keith’s hand._

            “We just…just need to find another…route into the lab,” Keith breathes in a whisper. “Team—team, that thing—”

            And then the ground shakes.

            Lance’s heart shoots to his throat. Keith speeds up, grip on Lance’s hand turning crushing while Lance risks the glance over his shoulder. If Keith wasn’t keeping him going, he might’ve passed out right then and there. The creature’s legs are _long_ as it stalks out from the hall it had been down, eyes blazing a bright pink—

            _Bright pink, bright pink_ _…_

            _Mierda._

            Bright pink means quintessential corruption, which means this thing’s not a normal creature. It’s probably enhanced, somehow, and if it’s enhanced, it’s gonna be all the harder to take down…

            Its eyes seem to lock on Lance’s, and Lance’s knees buckle. He stumbles, and he knows, he _knows_ he’s slowing Keith down. Keith glances at him, eyes wide and bright with panic when he realizes Lance’s legs are giving out below him, and they grow even wider when he sees the creature behind them, closing off the distance in just a few steps.

            “Lance! C’mon! _Team, we need you!_ ”

            _“What’s going on?”_ Allura asks, voice pitching up with alarm.

            “Quintessence monster, it’s fucking huge, we need backup _now!_ ”

            They have to keep running. Stopping means fighting, and the two of them are clearly outmatched. Lance’s heart hammers against his chest as he tries to get his legs working again, Keith practically dragging him along.

            It’s still too late. Those seconds of weakness are going to cost them, and Lance sees the monster’s arm swing back.

            “Keith, go!” Lance shouts, and wrenches his hand out of Keith’s grasp. He shoves Keith, once, and stops dead while Keith keeps going—only for a few feet, before he realizes what Lance is doing.

            “No!”

            Lance raises his bayard and manages two shots before the hand collides with his body. Both shots hit their mark—one in each glowing eye. He only knows because he sees the pink go dark, in the moment before several bones in his torso break, and his body goes flying down the corridor, until it smacks into a wall, and he crumbles.

            Pain sets his nerves on fire. Explodes in his mouth, as he realizes he’s bitten down on his tongue somewhere along the way, and tastes metal in his mouth. Bright red blood dribbles down his chin.

            His armor saved him from what could have been life-ending injuries, but he’s definitely not going to last for long. Not unless the team comes.

            _Protect the leader._

            Somehow, Lance still has his gun in his hand, and he raises it, fingers trembling as he takes aim, and notices Keith preparing to round on the creature. He’s small, so _freaking small_ against the creature’s silhouette, and the creature’s _angry._ It howls in pain, both eyes screwed shut, and lunges forward, swiping blindly.

            Keith’s nimble, and dodges the first few attacks before a hand catches him off-guard, smacks into his back and sends him across the floor.

            Lance fires.

            From his spot, he manages four shots, and all four land. Two to the head, and two to the torso. It’s still not enough to kill, but it’s enough to stun. Enough for the creature to stagger back, while Lance gets to his feet, limbs screaming as he runs forward, runs _toward_ the danger, and helps Keith, who’s struggling to get off the floor.

            “Let me see, _let me see, dammit_ ,” Lance says, and when Keith raises his head, Lance sucks in a breath.

            He hit the ground face-first—Lance saw it happen. He rolled with the impact, for the most part, but by some stroke of bad luck, his visor is shattered, and shards have stuck themselves in his cheeks, one embedding itself dangerously close to his eye, another ripping open a gash in his forehead that drips blood down the rest of his face.

            “What else hurts?” Lance asks, and glances again at the creature, recovering, preparing—

            “Doesn’t matter,” Keith grunts, grimacing. “We’ve gotta go.”

            He proves he can still run when he grabs Lance’s hand again, and the two of them take off down the corridor, Keith demanding over the comms that the team no longer listen to the call for backup—they’re to get to the Lions and leave as soon as they can.

            _“Are you two gonna be okay?”_ Hunk asks.

            Keith flicks his eyes to Lance, and Lance’s heart pounds harder.

            “Yeah. I’ve got my sharpshooter with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, sitting before my monitor, with a single tear running down my face: _we could've had it alllllllllllll_
> 
> no but fr we were robbed of coleadership kl, s3 had a beautiful team dynamic that deserved to be explored far more than it was
> 
> anyway see y'all later


	13. xiii. black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Also, in his defense, he’s been at this for what, two weeks? And it’s been a hectic two weeks. Cut him some slack._
> 
> Canon-divergent...maybe sometime in s5? I dunno. The team ends up captured under Lance's leadership. It's a good thing chaos has always seemed to work out for Team Voltron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao i have no idea when this would take place. during s5? post s5, pre s6??? i dunno but basically lance is bp, keith's his right hand, allura's in blue, pidge and hunk are always irrelevant when it comes to the lion switches
> 
> also i wrote this with established keith/lance in mind ~~bc come on look how well they know each other here~~ but if klance ain't ur cup of tea i feel like it's ambiguous enough. maybe. i dunno. HAVE THE FIC.

 

## xiii. black

            Okay, so maybe there’s not a mission Lance can recall, under Shiro or Keith’s leadership, where the entire team ended up captured, bound and on their knees while a Galra command paced back and forth in front of them, appraising them with what can only be malicious intent. To be fair, though, he didn’t think he was cut out for the job, either. Still doesn’t think he is, if he’s being honest. Pin that on the Black Lion.

            Also, in his defense, he’s been at this for what, two weeks? And it’s been a _hectic two weeks._ Cut him some slack.

            “So,” the Galra commander starts, and already, Lance knows the commander is one of _those_ people. Speeches and monologues and pleasure in making a mockery of the group gathered before him. “ _These_ are the mighty Paladins of Voltron who attempted to take my ship down.”

            The commander breaks out of the rut he’s been making in the floor, choosing to circle, now, around the Paladins. Slow. Menacing. Lance is at one end of the line of Paladins, while Allura sits on the other. His face screws up as the commander studies each one of them in order, starting with the Black Paladin and ending with the princess. Then he returns to his rut, a smirk playing at his lips. Lance suppresses the shiver that itches to run down his spine.

            “ _One of you_ pilots the Black Lion,” the commander drawls, voice as lazy as his gait. His eyes rove over the group again, and his smirk stretches into a grin. Lance keeps his face carefully neutral, but next to him, he feels Keith tense up. Neither looks at the other as the commander goes on, “But none of you wear the Black Paladin’s armor.”

            Another dramatic pause, a space where perhaps a Paladin might slip up, might glance at another and give away the Black Paladin’s identity. Lance holds his breath, silently wills the team to keep their eyes forward. They’ve never been in this deep, never been faced with a threat like this. They’ve spoken about it before, of course—what they’d do if they were faced with interrogation, faced with the choice between pain and giving up the rest of the team. Everyone claimed they’d be able to keep strong, keep their mouths shut.

            Lance hopes they won’t have to be put to the test.

            “However,” the commander goes on, and his eyes land on Allura, light up viciously, “ _you_ wear a color that matches no Lion. Reports say that you’re _also_ the princess of the fallen Altea. A natural-born leader. And wouldn’t you say that’s fitting of the Black Paladin? A leader others can’t help but follow?”

            The commander’s eyes are still on her, and Lance seizes his opportunity to flick his gaze in that direction. Allura’s eyes are narrowed, her jaw set, but Lance has spent enough time with the team to read them. Her shoulders are nowhere near as square as they could be, and the shine in her eyes spells out _fear,_ plain as day. If Lance leans back, he can see the way her hands ball into fists behind her back, as she digs nails into the sides of her hands—even through the gloves, she attempts to use the press of them to ground herself.

            It’s over for Lance the minute the commander takes a step forward.

            “It’s not her,” he says, voice as strong as he can muster. He waits a heartbeat, as the commander stills, and then cocks his head, turning that smile on _him._ He takes in a breath, quietly, and shuts his eyes. “I’m the Black Paladin.”

            “ _You?_ ”

            The commander barks out an incredulous laugh, and Lance’s eyes snap open. The commander’s head’s thrown back, eyes shut, and he laughs again, _louder,_ each one a knife to Lance’s ego. He’ll take what he can get, though—at least he’s managed to break through the commander’s careless facade.

            “Well!” the commander says, and quiets down. “ _That_ makes more sense. A princess would be _far_ more competent than to land her _entire team_ in the hands of the enemy. Wouldn’t you agree?”

            He turns his entire body in Lance’s direction, starts walking forward. The team is absolutely silent, but now, Lance can feel every eye on him. It’s too late for them to pull a Spartacus—they’ve waited too long, and their terrified glances are confirmation enough that Lance has spoken the truth.

            “I don’t know,” Lance replies, mimicking the commander’s drawl. “It took an entire _fleet_ to bring just five of us down.”

            His mistake is looking the commander in the eyes.

            The commander slaps him across the face, hard enough to send him sideways to the floor. His armor takes most of the fall against his arm, but his face stings. Lance is certain the commander’s raked nails across his face during the slap—something warm and wet tickles his cheek.

            “You would think,” the commander replies, crouching down, bending over, until his face is inches from Lance’s, close enough for Lance to know this guy probably needs to get better dental hygiene, “that the _defenders of the universe_ would be able to _handle_ a _single fleet_.”

            He stands, turns away from Lance. Returns to pacing, and leaves Lance to get himself back to his knees. Lance grunts as he does, and when he’s steady again, he looks at Keith. Keith’s eyes shine with concern, his body overly-rigid. Lance just shakes his head, a silent plea for Keith to keep his mouth shut. Keith raises his eyebrows, eyes cutting to the commander and back again, but Lance holds firm with a second shake of the head.

            They’re not going to argue over this.

            They both turn forward again, although Lance knows Keith’s watching him from the corner of his eye, and Lance leans over enough to nudge him, until Keith stubbornly looks away.

            “So, if he’s the Black Paladin, and not the _Blue Paladin_ , as I’ve incorrectly assumed…and the one in red is still clearly the Red Paladin—”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith snaps.

            The knowing glance the commander throws in his direction silences him. Keith sinks back, while the commander stalks along the line of them. He stops in front of Hunk, who sits squarely between Pidge and Allura, just so he can get a good look at the three of them.

            “One of _you three_ is the Blue Paladin, then,” the commander says. His eyes land on Pidge, and he scowls. “The Empire has a vast knowledge of the hacking capabilities of the Green Paladin, and seeing as _you_ appear to resemble the little _icon_ you so cheekily throw in alongside your _bugs_ and your _firewalls_ …”

            The commander smacks a palm against Pidge’s forehead and shoves, and she topples back with a yelp.

            “Hey!” Lance shouts. “Leave her alone!”

            The commander pauses, long enough to swivel his head in Lance’s direction. He still hasn’t stopped _smiling_ , and Lance’s skin crawls.

            “What?” the commander asks, feigning innocence. “You don’t like it when I rough up one of your teammates? Is that it?”

            The remaining four members of the team lunge in sync, as the commander draws his leg back to kick Pidge while she’s down. Keith is the fastest, and catches the brunt of it, and the other three turn, and converge on the commander, at Lance’s call to charge.

            Three Paladins on one commander should be no problem, but it’s a little bit harder when their hands are cuffed behind their backs, their bayards are gone, and they’ve got no helmets to protect their heads. Still, Lance, Allura, and Hunk make an effort. Hunk leads the two of them, both dealing and absorbing most of the damage as the three of them bodyslam into the commander. He stumbles back and hits the ground, clearly not prepared for an attack, while Allura and Lance go at his sides.

            Even with his hands behind him, Lance manages to swipe the gun the commander carries.

            He and Allura move quickly, while Hunk busies himself keeping the commander down, and Keith tends to Pidge as best he can. Lance drops to the ground and rolls, and gets his hands in front of him, even though the motion sends pain through the arm he landed on. Then he jumps back to his feet and aims the gun, at the space where Allura’s handcuffs meet.

            It takes a single shot to snap the connection.

            Allura takes the gun from Lance, and though she’s never been as clean or steady as a shot as him, and favors fighting with a staff or the like over a long-range weapon, she still manages to separate Lance’s hands. Neither have any time to rub at their wrists or to savor the feeling of having a full range of motion back.

            “Help Keith and Pidge,” Lance orders, as Allura hands off the gun. “I’ve got Hunk.”

            She obliges, dodging around the commander and Hunk, who stumble straight for them. Lance drops into a roll and comes back up on one knee and fires. Hunk’s arms fly apart as he brings them forward to pummel the commander, while Lance readjusts his aim, smirking, suppressing his satisfaction.

            His next three shots all hit their marks, because he isn’t the team’s sharpshooter for nothing. He nails the commander in the torso, in the elbow, in the kneecap, and the guy is left howling with pain while Hunk pins him to the ground, one foot against the guy’s back. It’s about that time that Pidge, Keith, and Allura all approach, and the four of them form a tight circle around Hunk and the commander.

            Lance makes a show of waltzing up to the commander’s angry face and then dropping into a crouch, _tsk_ ing the whole way down.

            “ _You would think_ ,” he mimics, earning snickers from the others, “that _you_ _’d_ be able to handle _five disarmed Paladins_ , but here we are.”

            There’s another set of cuffs on the commander’s belt. Lance eyes them, and then glances at Keith, who’s followed his line of sight. Keith obliges without a word, unable to conceal his own grin as he takes them into his hands. Hunk readjusts his position, and Keith cuffs the commander’s wrists. These cuffs aren’t exactly made for a bulky Galra—they’re definitely designed for a Paladin, for a _human_ , and the commander winces as they press into his skin. Fur. Lance still isn’t sure what to call the strange mix of the two.

            “Now,” Lance goes on, “you’re going to tell us exactly where your goons put our bayards and our helmets, or else things are going to get a lot worse for you. Cough up the location.”

            The commander’s glare would’ve been a lot more threatening if their positions were reversed. Lance just rolls his eyes and waves a hand, and Hunk’s boot presses down harder on the commander’s spine. Assuming the Galra have spines. They must, right? Keith has a spine, after all—

            _Okay, yeah, that_ _’s enough there. Focus, McClain._

            “Victory or death,” the commander wheezes. “You won’t get a thing out of me.”

            Lance sighs melodramatically. “That’s a shame…for you. We’re not exactly in the business of straight-up slaughtering our enemies. But no worries.” He sweeps his arm out at the team. “We’re perfectly content doing this _all. Quiznaking. Quintant._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao day 14 and 15 still need to be written rip


	14. xiv. game night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“What’s Monsters & Mana?” Keith asks. “Is that like, Dungeons & Dragons or something?”_
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6 during the road trip back to Earth. Coran salvaged Monsters & Mana from the castle, and the group introduces Keith to the game. Ft. our favorite pining fool, Lance "Pike" McClain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> am i sorry for the amount of klance in the last few prompts?
> 
> only slightly

## xiv. game night

            “I’m bored.”

            It’s Lance who speaks, of the group gathered around the fire.

            The team’s on another new planet, camped out for some rest while the Lions recharge, and over the course of the last few weeks, they’ve exhausted almost every avenue of fun. Nature walks are either draining or turn into life-threatening situations—Lance shudders as he recalls the monstrous kitten that tried to eat Pidge on Tuesday—and the locals are either friendly or hostile, and the team has no inclination to get booed out of another city. Ghost stories lost their charm after the first day, after some people—okay, after _Coran_ went off the deep end. And Lance isn’t going to be the one to suggest they _play a game._

            It’s a suggestion no one’s brought up, really, because for the most part, the team’s been _tired._

            “Congratulations,” Pidge deadpans. “Y’want a medal?”

            Lance glares. “ _No_. We just haven’t done anything…I dunno…fun, in a while?”

            “I thought running for our lives two days ago was pretty fun,” Hunk mutters sarcastically.

            Lance looks helplessly around the circle, for anyone to back him up. Okay, no, maybe not _anyone_. Krolia still scares him, and Romelle’s just been…quiet. Lance isn’t sure what vibe she’s been giving off—he’s still trying to place it, if he’s being honest—but from what he’s gathered so far, it doesn’t exactly jell with his.

            “What’d you have in mind?” Keith finally asks from next to him, and it throws Lance for a loop when he realizes Keith’s question was genuine. Not a jab. Nothing sharp in his tone at _all_ , and it’s what Lance was looking for. And so Lance doesn’t throw another glare at him. Doesn’t put on an air of bravado. But he does the same thing he just told himself he wasn’t gonna do.

            “I mean, we could play a game,” he suggests, voice going quiet.

            Coran rockets to his feet, startling Allura, who sits next to him. “ _Monsters & Mana_!” he exclaims. “Lance! You’re a genius!”

            Lance’s eyes widen, and he sits up a little taller. “I-I am?”

            “What’s _Monsters & Mana_?” Keith asks. “Is that like, _Dungeons & Dragons_ or something?”

            “Hold on, you know what D&D is?” Hunk gapes.

            Keith glances around the rest of the circle, at the incredulous looks from everyone else—especially Lance, who didn’t have him pegged for nerdiness. Weirdness, yes. Sketchiness, yes. At first, at least. Badassery? Y—never mind. Point is, Keith never struck him as the type to sit around a table and play make-believe with a book and a map to guide him.

            “I lived in the desert, not under a rock,” Keith replies, and then returns his gaze to Coran, leaning forward almost…eagerly.

            It’s kind of endearing, Lance has to admit.

            And then quickly pretends like he hadn’t just admitted in his head.

            “I’ve got no idea what this _Dungeons & Dragons_ is,” Coran says. “ _Monsters & Mana_ is an exciting—”

            “It’s the same thing,” Pidge interrupts. “A little more futuristic, but the same thing.”

            Keith nods, while Coran stares daggers at Pidge, before stepping over the log he’s been sitting on and breaking for the Blue Lion. The rest of the team glances around the circle at each other, eyes wide. No one’s really sure what to say in Coran’s absence; thankfully, his absence is short-lived. He stumbles back out of Blue a minute or two later, hauling what appears to be…a whole _table_. Because it’s Coran, so of _course_ he salvaged a table from the castleship.

            “Gather ‘round, gather ‘round! All aboard who’s playing!” Coran calls.

            For another moment, the group exchanges glances. Finally, Shiro rises to his feet, lifts his hand. “Toss me one of the devices. I’ll be a paladin.”

            He strolls the rest of the way over, catching one of the orange game devices mid-stride, and Lance might have rolled his eyes at Shiro’s choice of player, once, but after everything that’s gone down…well, he’ll let this one slide. And every single one after that.

            “I’ll pass,” Krolia says, and leans back. “I think I’ll just observe this round.”

            “Well, there aren’t exactly _rounds_ ,” Coran begins, but Krolia waves a hand, and Coran shrugs. Then he shifts his eyes toward the others—Romelle, Allura, Hunk, Pidge, Keith, and Lance. “Any other takers? Or do I have to write a whole story for Shiro alone?”

            “I’ll play,” Allura says, after a breath. She stands up, and as she does, Pidge and Hunk also give in. Romelle shakes her head, and offers to sit by and also watch, because she’s never really played, either, and wants a feel for the game before diving in.

            Finally, Lance sighs. “Alright, I’m in. Time to bring back my main man, Pike.”

            He stands up, and glances at Keith out of the corner of his eye. Keith’s watching him carefully, like he’s not even aware he’s doing it. The expression on his face is…thoughtful, maybe? Lance can’t quite place it. All he knows is that his heart flutters, and he has to look away, and winces internally right after he says, “Betcha Mullet over here’s gonna be the party-pooper.”

            _Classy. Masterful. Excellent choice of words, Tailor_ , Lance mentally bemoans himself.

            Of course, his words have their intended effect, no matter how briefly his intent existed. Keith stands up, eyes narrowed, mouth quirked up at one end.

            “Y’want me to play? Fine. What races and classes have we got?” he asks, as he and Lance join the group around the table.

            “Almost the same ones as D&D,” Hunk answers. “Paladins, bards, druids, monks…dwarves, centaurs, orcs…”

            Coran hands off two devices, one each, to Keith and Lance. Keith swipes through it for a moment, tongue poking out between his lips— _why would you even notice that, holy shit, just focus on your character_ —while Lance gets to work pulling up his own stats, Pike’s character already saved from their previous game.

            “Lemme guess,” Lance says, glancing up. “You’re gonna be some kind of orc barbarian, or something.”

            Keith doesn’t meet his gaze, shaking his head, eyes still firmly fixed on the screen in front of him as he taps on the different options. It takes him a minute or so more to get it together, and then look up at Coran. “I wanna be a half-elf ranger.”

            _Half-elf ranger?_

            That’s…new. Lance cocks his head as he studies Keith, while the rest of the group congratulates him on choosing a character so they can get the game going. He tries to picture Keith with pointy ears, wandering around a forest with melee weapons, or a bow and arrow. Quiet and stalking prey, almost…sort of like Pike. _Sort of._ Because they’re not the same, even though Keith is _clearly_ trying to one-up him here with a similar character.

            “Interesting,” Lance mutters, before more loudly remarking: “Well, good luck on that! Gonna give you a run for your money. Literally. Watch your pockets.”

            Lance grins smugly as Keith raises an eyebrow, and his smile widens.

            “Alright, _Pike_ , you’re on. Prepare to face Thunderstorm Darkness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can pry half-elf ranger ~~keith~~ thunderstorm darkness from my cold dead hands
> 
> day 15 will hopefully be up later today!!


	15. xv. lazy afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Okay, I’m gonna say this once: if anyone speaks up when I’m done with this announcement and adds even a breath of hot air to this godforsaken hellscape, I will murder you. It’s too hot. Keep your mouths shut.”_
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6. The Paladins and crew are arrested by the Garrison upon homecoming and kept in a holding cell. A very hot, very tiny holding cell, definitely not suitable for _eight prisoners_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao sorry this one's shorter
> 
> i've got inspiration for day 20 tho, so get hyped for friday (as if friday isn't gonna be massively chaotic with sdcc erbetbtebhetb)

## xv. lazy afternoon

            “Okay, I’m gonna say this once: if anyone speaks up when I’m done with this announcement and adds even a _breath_ of hot air to this godforsaken hellscape, I will murder you. It’s too hot. Keep your mouths shut.”

            So this is a little meaner than Pidge’s typical grumpy attitude, but Lance can’t fault her for it.

            The space they’ve been given by the Galaxy Garrison isn’t the nicest. At all. But you can’t expect much from a freaking _holding cell_. That they knew, when Iverson and his lackeys threw the whole team in here without a second thought, with the promise that this would be temporary, and was merely for Earth’s safety.

            Yesterday.

            It’s a maximum-security holding cell. As it is, they can’t see out the tiny slit at the top of a door opened only by some kind of access card. There’s not a single window, and one vent sits squarely in the center of the ceiling, with slits only fractionally wider than the one on the door. It’s not the best way to move air in and out of the room sufficiently. Especially not when there are six Paladins, one advisor, one former rebel operative, and an alien refugee all crammed into the vicinity.

            Their outfits aren’t helping. They’ve all been issued the same things—loose black pants and white wifebeaters, along with black slippers. Can’t have them in any kind military or Paladin gear, lest they try and use their armor to make an escape.

            The shirts are nice, fine. Lance will give them that. Sleeveless and white…although maybe white isn’t the best color when everyone in the room is sweating to death. But the pants? Dark? And the fact that they’re _pants?_ Half the team has already caved and rolled them up as far as they can go, exposing an obscene amount of leg hair. Not that there’s anything _wrong_ with leg hair, exactly, but Lance prefers his own legs to be smooth. And not rubbing up against other people's.

            But that’s exactly what they’re doing. Lance…it’s not like he’d rather _die_ than be in here, but the option of being out of his body and away from the stench of eight frustrated people in one tiny space seems infinitely appealing, at the moment.

            “It’s official,” Hunk groans, head thudding against the wall. “Iverson’s on my shit list.”

            The rest of the group follows up his statement with a chorus of leaky pipe impressions, the _shhhh_ probably adding more hot air to the room than Hunk has.

            Hunk glares at everyone through the hair flopping in his eyes, and Lance can’t help but feel bad for the guy. _Everything_ was confiscated when they came in here—Hunk’s headband, Pidge’s glasses, Romelle’s hair ties, _everything._ It’s a good thing Pidge never actually needed her glasses in the first place, and multiple people in here have the skills to braid hair intricately enough for it to stay in place without something holding it there.

            If only Hunk’s hair was long enough to braid.

            “Iverson’s _been_ on my shit list,” Lance mumbles, and Keith and Shiro both grunt in agreement.

            “Speak again, I fucking dare you,” Pidge responds.

            It’s not a big space. None of them have the energy left to stand, and heat rises, so standing sucks enough anyway. They’re all leaning against walls—some with their legs drawn up, others with their legs stretched out. Pidge, the smallest of them, has taken to sprawling across the floor, draped over several people’s legs. Her threat’s not very menacing from there.

            Lance doesn’t have it in him to come back with a snappy reply, so he settles for flipping Pidge the bird—and she flips it right back.

            “Pidge,” Shiro groans.

            Pidge opens her mouth, probably to argue that Lance started it, and then shuts it and makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, throwing an arm over her eyes to block out the blinding white fluorescents.

            “I still say we try breaking out of here,” Lance continues anyway, despite the sharp glare Pidge automatically gives him. “Better than sitting here, dying in our own puddles of sweat and tears.”

            “Nobody’s crying, Lance,” Shiro remarks, eyes closed.

            “I think Coran is, actually,” Allura pipes up, and Shiro opens his eyes, as everyone swivels toward the oldest person in the room.

            Sure enough, Coran is curled up in the corner, and there are definitely tears in his eyes. “It’s too _hot!_ I feel like I’m back in Altea’s Mizzonal Desert! And that place was miserable!”

            “Do we even wanna know why you were in the desert?” Lance asks.

            Coran moans. “ _No_.”

            Lance sighs. “Anyway, point stands. We need to get out of here. I betcha Iverson’s just waiting until we all die of heatstroke or start killing each other, so he can tell the public we’re all dead. Again.”

            He doesn’t mean to bring a dark cloud over the room, but that’s what happens. At the mention of the Paladins—formerly missing Garrison cadets, save for Keith—the group grows quiet, solemn as they recall their shock when they first touched down, and heard the information the public received.

            “So I vote we sacrifice Lance first,” Pidge says, after a while.

            Lance scoffs at the ensuing mumbles of agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see ya tomorrow!!


	16. xvi. pets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lance rockets back, scrubbing a hand over his face as he tries to gather his bearings. The yelp he lets out is unholy, but he really can’t bring himself to care—not until he realizes that Cosmo’s here, and he didn’t even hear Keith’s space wolf arrive._
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6 during the road trip back to Earth. Lance receives comfort from an unexpected friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short and sweet one :P

## xvi. pets

            When Lance was very young, he had a dog.

            He doesn’t remember much of his life with Pollux, mostly because he was too young for his brain to hang onto their adventures together. What he does remember is a lot of fur, and a lot of burying his face into it. Running down the beach with Pollux’s dark hair flopping, getting sandy. Brushing him out afterward. Wading into the ocean with him, and having Pollux shake the water out, all over him.

            His memories with Pollux are all so bright, so positive, and they blot out any inkling of remembrance Lance has of the day Pollux died. He must not have been home, or he must have repressed it so horribly that it faded away with time. There’s a blurry space in his mind; he was a child with a big, fluffy dog and three older siblings, and then he was a child with three older siblings, and no dog.

            There’s an ache, though, so something must have happened.

            His next pets were fish. His house had an aquarium for them, brilliantly colored and low-maintenance. When they first got the fish, Lance recalled spending hours sitting in front of the tank, watching them drift by and imagining himself their size, swimming among them. But as weeks became months, and months became years, the fish failed to entertain him. He still admired them, and never gave up caring for them until the last one passed on shortly before he entered the Garrison.

            His last pet before he left for the Garrison for stretches upon stretches at a time was a cat. A tiny thing, gray-furred and quiet and outdoorsy. Her name was Vega, and Lance pet her for the last time on his second-to-last break at the Garrison before finding the Blue Lion.

            He doesn’t think he ever got the full story out of his mother or his siblings. Doesn’t think he’ll _ever_ get the full story. They claimed, when he came back for his final break, that one day she saw the open door and bolted, and they never saw her again after that. Lance doesn’t know if he bought it then, or if he’ll ever fully buy into it. He just knows his sweet girl ran off, and that was that.

            Having Blue and Red is different. Lions, yes. Pets, no. Definitely not. Lance still can’t be sure what to call his relationship with them—battle partners? He can’t just call Blue and Red vehicles, or weapons of war. Not when they’ve saved his life on their own accord, saved the lives of his teammates. Helped calm him down when he needed it most.

            But they’re not here, now.

            He’s not sure what’s triggered the panic, the anxiety squeezing his heart, the terror crushing his lungs. He just knows that one minute, he’s on his own, scavenging for supplies to make the night’s stay on this planet a little more comfortable—fire, food, and water are always, _always_ the group’s main concerns as soon as they touch down. The next minute, he’s on his knees in the thickest part of the woods, wheezing, tears bursting forth out of seemingly nowhere.

            And there’s no one around.

            He can’t call down Red _or_ Blue, no matter how desperate he might be. The team agreed to leave each planet along their planet-hopping journey as untouched as possible, and he can’t have a Lion landing in the middle of the woods, destroying trees and other plant life. His brain’s too scrambled for him to reach out through their mental links, and the longer the attack goes on, the longer he chokes on sobs, the less he’s sure they even know what’s going on.

            Lance’s senses are shot, so taken over by this attack that he doesn’t hear the twigs snapping, suddenly and directly behind him. He doesn’t hear feet crunching leaves. He doesn’t register a single thing until there’s something warm and slobbery on his cheek, something furry pushing his hands away from his face.

            Lance rockets back, scrubbing a hand over his face as he tries to gather his bearings. The yelp he lets out is unholy, but he really can’t bring himself to care—not until he realizes that Cosmo’s here, and he didn’t even hear Keith’s space wolf arrive.

            “O-Oh, Cosmo,” Lance says, and reaches out a hand. Cosmo trots toward him and bumps his snout into Lance’s palm, and then sidles up to him and allows Lance to pet him. “Hey, buddy.”

            Cosmo sits down and firmly plants himself against Lance’s side, while Lance strokes his fur, sniffling. He runs another arm across his face, scowling briefly before letting the expression drop. He hasn’t the energy to keep up a _tough guy_ act, especially when Cosmo’s the only one around.

            “How’d you find me?” Lance mutters, scratching behind Cosmo’s ear, while Cosmo tilts his head and sticks his tongue out, smiling and panting lightly, tail wagging. He nudges Lance’s forearm with the bottom of his head, out of the way, so he can press his face into Lance’s side. He rolls, pressing his back against Lance’s leg, exposing his belly.

            Lance cracks a smile.

            “Y’want belly rubs, huh? Y’want belly rubs?”

            Lance voice gets higher as he gives into Cosmo’s antics, shifting over to come at the space wolf from a better angle. Cosmo’s tongue flops over the side of his mouth, his tail wagging up a storm as Lance rubs his belly. A few times, when Lance brings his face in closer, Cosmo paws at him, earning giggles from the Red Paladin.

            Within minutes, Lance’s tears are gone. He stands up when Cosmo does, and jumps around in a circle with him, both of them in a pose that suggests they’re ready to pounce. When Lance takes a step forward, Cosmo turns and bolts, rather than disappearing, and Lance throws his head back and laughs, genuinely _laughs,_ and chases after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway,, lance mcclain is a strong and valuable member of team voltron!! he deserves all the love and support in the world!!!


	17. xvii. hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Shiro’s words haunt Lance late into the night, for days and weeks after things go down._
> 
> Canon-verse, probably sometime during s5 or between s5 and s6. Lance gets introspective on where his life is going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is short bc the inspiration train left the station without me and also i'm still really bitter
> 
> lance deserves betterrrrrrr

## xvii. hero

            Shiro’s words haunt Lance late into the night, for days and weeks after things go down.

            He can’t stop seeing things play out in his head: Shiro snapping, agreeing with Lotor; the others silent as he turned eyes filled to the brim with malice on Lance, and no one bothering to check in after. His strange behavior in the hallway, while the others were too busy tinkering with the ship to notice. And then…

            _“Lance, listen to me…”_

            What the _hell_ had _that_ been?

            Lance groans, and rubs a hand over his sleep-crusty eyes. He blinks a few times, tries to clear away the bleariness as he sits up in bed, frowning.

            This is nowhere near what he had in mind a year ago, when he first rescued Shiro from the Garrison hospital and became a Paladin.

            Lance from a year ago had looked forward to impressing his hero of a decade. The memory of Shiro coming into his science class when he was young, explaining the Garrison and how to get in, and all the cool things he could accomplish if he studied there…it’s always been a highlight. A turning point in Lance’s life. He always loved space, wanted to get out there one day. He idolized Shiro, and hearing him talk to the class…that did him in.

            Getting into space and becoming a Paladin of Voltron alongside Shiro was a dream come true. He could impress his _hero_ with his sharpshooting, with his piloting. When Shiro returned, and Keith stepped down, and Lance became Shiro’s right hand? _Finally,_ he could prove his worth. He could be just as good a right hand as Keith, just as important and trusted.

            _“I told you to stay out of this.”_

            Who says that to their second-in-command?

            _Something_ _’s not right._

            No, something’s definitely not right. Lance gathered that much from the malice in Shiro’s eyes. For all his stress, he’s never seen Shiro turn a look like that on a teammate, least of all the person he was supposed to rely on in battle. He’d never even turned that look on _Slav,_ and Slav drove Shiro up the wall every second they were together.

            _You_ _’ve just gotta be there for him._

            Yes, of course—he’s gotta be there for Shiro regardless, because if Shiro can’t keep it together, someone’s gotta keep the team in line. Tradition typically has that role fall to the right hand. But it’s not _just_ that—something’s hurting him. Lance’ll be damned if he can’t be there for a friend suffering. But…

            Lance’s chest aches, and he leans over, against the wall. The metal’s cool, grounding, but still does little to distract from the other thoughts racing through his head, to distract from the way the others kept quiet. Not even _Hunk_ spoke up in his defense when Shiro blew up, and Lance thought, up to that moment, he could rely on Hunk. His best friend…supposedly. But he kept his mouth shut. Pidge and Allura said nothing. And Lance never expected Lotor to rush to his aid in the first place.

            _You_ _’re just at the low point in your story,_ Lance tries to reassure himself. Every hero in every movie he’s seen, every book he’s read, must hit a low point—sometimes _rock bottom_ —before they can truly rise up, before they can be that phoenix, burned out, rising from the ashes to new glory.

            _“You have greatness within.”_

            He unlocked an _Altean broadsword_ , something worthy of _King Alfor._ That’s gotta count for something, right? And he’s gained the trust of two Lions. Not one, _two._ There’s gotta be more waiting for him, right? Stories don’t end with the protagonist at their lowest. They just _don_ _’t_. His story has nowhere to go but up…right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see ya later


	18. xviii. training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lance sucked in a quiet breath, raised his rifle, and stepped away from the column, into plain sight of the soldier._
> 
> Canon-verse. Lance makes an unlikely friend while on a mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have i mentioned lately how much i love lance mcclain
> 
> i love lance mcclain more than i loved myself

## xviii. training

            As far as Lance was concerned, _training_ never _just_ meant going up against gladiator bots on the castle’s training deck. It wasn’t limited to hours spent in flight simulators, working over and over again to navigate a successful mission and finally rid himself of that awful _SIMULATION FAILED_ message branded in the back of his brain. It didn’t _only_ include team-building exercises. To Lance, everything in life trained you for the future—constant learning. Constant adapting. The big things _and_ the little things prepared you for the road ahead.

            Training definitely included sneaking around behind his mother’s back as a child, slipping out to go stargazing. Training included intense games of hide-and-seek with his siblings, where Lance found the best spots each time, knew the path from one spot to the next without getting caught. Training included wandering around behind Iverson and the Garrison staff to sneak out and party, and then breaking back into the dorms in the middle of the night.

            Of course, Lance didn’t know these things then. It only occurred to him now, back pressed to a wide column as he counted off a soldier’s footsteps, tried to pinpoint their location just from how they echoed in the room.

            The place was small, cramped, and as a result, there was only one soldier down here. Lance held his breath as he listened to the soldier peruse the room. They didn’t march—no rhyme or rhythm in the way they stepped. Must have either been new, or the soldiers storming this castle must have had no protocol to follow. Or just didn’t _care_ to follow it. Multiple possibilities, and only one way to find out which ones might’ve been right.

            Lance’s fingers tightened around the handle of his bayard. Light flashed, there one instant and gone the next, as it transformed into his rifle. That must’ve gotten the soldier’s attention, because the footsteps came to a halt, and the stop was followed up with a demand to know _who_ _’s there? Show yourself!_

            To Lance’s surprise, the voice wavered. Cracked.

            And sounded far too young for him to be comfortable with.

            Lance sucked in a quiet breath, raised his rifle, and stepped away from the column, into plain sight of the soldier. He didn’t look down the scope of the thing—not yet. Then again…one target, tiny space? Not exactly like he needed to.

            Not like he wanted to, either.

            Not when he saw the soldier.

            The soldier couldn’t have been any taller than him, which, for Galra standards, meant _short._ Their own gun trembled in their hands, and Lance could see their face plainly—their helmet, for one reason or another, was missing. Just like his was. The soldier must have realized this, and they and Lance stood for a moment in complete and utter silence, studying the other. Lance’s hunch seemed to be right—he wasn’t sure how the Galra aged, but this one had to be young. Physically, no older than Lance himself.

            Lance’s training hadn’t prepared him for _this._

            Paladin protocol didn’t necessarily mean _shoot first, ask questions later._ But this was a soldier, whose sole purpose should’ve been to capture Lance, or kill him on-spot. Shooting first—and Lance could shoot to disarm without _looking_ —still tended to be the better idea. Better than whatever he and the soldier were doing now, which still seemed to be just…staring.

            “Y-You’re…you’re young,” the soldier blurted, face flushing immediately after.

            Lance nodded slowly, finger falling away from the trigger of his rifle. “And so are you.”

            The soldier straightened out a bit, lowered their gun just the slightest, and Lance mirrored their motions, until they both had their guns at their sides, muzzles pointed at the floor.

            “And you’re…an Earthling, right?” the soldier asked, voice hardly above a whisper.

            Lance swallowed thickly, and hesitated before dropping his own voice. “Yeah.”

            The soldier frowned. “You’re…not who I was expecting.”

            Lance furrowed his brow. Not who they were expecting? Had they not seen the Voltron shows? The public spectacles, celebrating the Paladins?

            “What do you mean?” Lance asked, and took a step forward. The soldier’s eyes widened at the move, and they hardly refrained from taking a step back in response. They cast their gaze to the floor.

            “I believed you were…older. Much older. And perhaps not even an Earthling at all.”

            _Not even an Earthling?_

            “What made you believe that?” Lance asked, genuinely curious.

            The soldier still didn’t lift their eyes. “It’s what we were told—don’t trust a thing the Voltron show says. We were led to believe the Paladins were shapeshifters. We were told that they were able to knock down Zarkon by hiding their true powers behind the forms of humans. …You’re not a shapeshifter, are you?”

            _Now_ the soldier looked up, expression harder than it had been a minute ago. Suspicious. Scrutinizing. Not of him, though, and perhaps that was what Lance found the most striking.

            “No,” he said, surprised. “That’s— _what?_ No, no—completely human. No shapeshifting.”

            In the back of his mind, Lance pondered the reasons a Galra soldier might’ve been told these things—to make them act more mercilessly on the battlefield? To strip them of any guilt if they believed that the _Paladins_ were the brutal ones, nearly impossible to defeat, to make taking them down that much more satisfying of a victory?

            The soldier in front of him, meanwhile, flicked their gaze down to the gun at their side, frown deepening. Lance waited, watched carefully, prepared to spring into action if need be. Then, to his shock, the soldier stuck their hand out.

            “Truce? I’m Vetinak.”

            Training told Lance the Galra were traitorous, would bend and twist their words and their agenda to climb their way to the top. It began like that at the highest rung of the ladder, and trickled all the way down into the soldiers, indoctrinated into believing in nothing but _victory or death._

            They didn’t truce.

            But people changed, and people grew, and there were always flaws in the system, always rebels and insurgents in the crowd. The kinds of people Lance grew up watching in movies and reading about, the underdog he was meant to root for.

            So he stuck _his_ hand out, wrapped it around Vetinak’s.

            “Truce. …I’m Lance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this was late
> 
> it's currently abt 10 PM on the east coast rn so hopefully day 19 will be written and posted before midnight but idk
> 
> see ya later


	19. xix. video game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Most of the team probably assumed they’d find Lance in the pool. Yeah, right—formerly the pilot of the water-associated Lion, grew up in Varadero, Cuba, and enjoyed the beach and rain. Lance didn’t blame them for jumping to the pool conclusion._
> 
> Canon-verse, sometime in s4 or 5, probably. Lance's video game session is interrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well...seeing as this is going up on the 25th, and this is the day 19 prompt, i'm debating whether or not to complete this
> 
> oh well

## xix. video game

            Everyone on the castle blew off steam differently. Different people, different ways of managing stress—fact of life. Hunk baked. Pidge tinkered, and maybe created new computer viruses if she had a target in mind. Allura hung out with the mice. Keith trained. Shiro meditated. Coran…Coran had a variety activities, and truthfully, no one knew where to expect him every time he came close to blowing a gasket.

            Most of the team probably assumed they’d find Lance in the pool. Yeah, right—formerly the pilot of the water-associated Lion, grew up in Varadero, Cuba, and enjoyed the beach and rain. Lance didn’t blame them for jumping to the pool conclusion.

            But no, Lance did not go to the pool to blow off steam—not always. Not even most of the time.

            No, Lance locked himself in his room with a video game and called it a day, especially since he actually had a gaming console, thanks to that stop at the space mall…regardless of whether it had been Pidge’s before he got his hands on it. It wasn’t like she ever came looking for it nowadays, anyway. Most days, she spent in the lab with Hunk, or with Matt whenever he stopped by the castleship. Shiro mostly helped Coran, and Allura was busy with that white-haired Legolas wannabe, and Keith? Keith was off running around with the Blades.

            That left Lance to his own devices…err, Pidge’s devices.

            His now.

            Contrary to whatever his siblings might’ve said, Lance didn’t tend to rage-quit. Typically, he could keep a level head, and it would take more than ten tries on a level to get him riled up. He would only consider today the exception: the controller shook in his hand after his fourth crushing defeat, and he didn’t even hear his door opening, because he was too busy screaming into a pillow to notice.

            “Lance?”

            Lance’s head whipped up, and his arm wound back on instinct, meaning to throw his controller at the intruder into his room. He narrowed his eyes and set the controller down as Matt stepped into the room, peering around with what must have been judgment on his face, even though he’d already _seen_ the same setup in Pidge’s room—the massive tangle of wires and boxes and converters it took to get the game system working, the tangle Lance spent hours moving and hooking up in his room _on his own, thank you very much._

            “What do you want?”

            So maybe his voice held a little bit more of a bite than he intended. But he was alone and in the dark for a _reason_ , and people didn’t exactly just have the right to interrupt that. Especially if there was no pressing danger Lance needed to attend to. And especially if those interrupting him were named Matthew Holt, because cool as he might’ve _seemed_ , something about him still put Lance off. His attitude? His sense of humor? The fact that he fit in with Pidge and Hunk seamlessly?

            “Uh,” Matt said, ever the wordsmith. His eyes roved slowly over the gaming consoles, before landing back on Lance. “I didn’t really have anything going on, and I wanted to play some video games. Pidge said the console was in your room, and you wouldn’t mind playing with me.”

            Lance didn’t respond right away. He stared for a heartbeat, let the words sink in.

            “Really?” Lance asked skeptically. “What’s Pidge up to that _she_ won’t play with you?”

            Matt shrugged. “Dunno. Something with the Green Lion. She was pretty into it when I talked to her. Y’know, how she sometimes has _go away I_ _’m busy_ in her tone?”

            Oh, Lance knew, far too well. He scowled, tearing his gaze away from Matt as he restarted the level for the fifth time.

            Momentarily, Matt stilled, and Lance thought for sure he’d get the clear message that he wanted Matt to _leave._ He didn’t expect Matt to silently cross the room—behind Lance, and out of the way of the screen, so Lance’s focus could remain _mostly_ unbroken—and sit down on the edge of his bed, clasp his hands, and watch Lance play.

            Lance’s shoulders bunched, the longer Matt went on watching his play, his grip on the controller tightening. Typically, he didn’t do well with an audience. Not in the Garrison simulator, not in video games. It was _easier_ to pay attention when there wasn’t the pressure to impress someone. Didn’t matter whether he intended to impress out of spite or he was seeking some kind of validation; he tended to screw up either way.

            And screw up he did.

            His character made it a foot farther than he had last time, before the creature he’d been bent on killing got to him first. _GAME OVER_ flashed across the screen, bathing Lance and most of the room in red light. Lance sighed, deep and ragged, and set his controller down, narrowed eyes shifting to Matt.

            Matt’s mouth was parted slightly. He blinked, and then realized Lance was glaring at him—or maybe just realized Lance was _looking,_ because he didn’t seem the least bit irritated.

            “Dude, what level is that?”

            Lance crossed his arms. “Like you don’t recognize it.”

            “I don’t!” Matt said, raising his hands defensively.

            Lance waited a heartbeat, and then sighed again, more defeated as he deflated, letting his arms fall into his lap. “Level seventeen. I know, I know, it’s—”

            “How the hell are you already on level seventeen?” Matt interrupted, eyes widening to the size of saucers. “I can barely get past level eleven!”

            _That_ stopped Lance. He froze, face slowly coming to mirror Matt’s. _He_ was further ahead than Matt? Further ahead than Pidge’s _genius older brother?_

            Maybe Lance knew little of Matt—somehow both more and less than he would’ve liked to know—but he had enough information. Enough to know that whenever Lance didn’t see Matt and Pidge goofing off with some scientific experiment or another, they were hardcore gaming, and Matt was kicking Pidge’s butt.

            “Level _eleven?_ ” Lance repeated incredulously.

            Matt nodded. “Dude, you gotta show me.”

            Lance looked down at the controller in his hand, eyes then flicking over to the second one, lying next to him on the ground, untouched for…weeks, maybe?

            He picked it up and tossed it in Matt’s direction. “Pay attention, Holt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhh...see you in the next one?


	20. xx. sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He doesn’t mean for the way his words leave him like a cry, guttural and anguished. Doesn’t mean for tears to spring to his eyes as he suddenly confesses it, and then appears dumbfounded with himself. He’s thrown his arms up, and now draws them back in, close to his chest, head whipping around the circle. He tries to shrink away from the suddenly-prying eyes of everyone else._
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6, during the road trip back to Earth. Team Voltron's tense after a high-stress battle, and Pidge finally pushes Lance to his breaking point. Only one Paladin decides to go after him when he runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao so i'm gonna keep chuggin till the end of the month hopefully :P
> 
> **trigger warnings for implications of lance having depression, death mentions, and discussion of the events of s6e1 and s4e6**

## xx. sacrifice

            Lance’s wits and nerves are already dangerously frayed by the time the team deems _this_ planet safe, and gathers around a pathetic-looking campfire in exhaustion. The team’s been complaining nonstop, and it must be the lack of sleep, the lack of proper nutrition that has everyone on a razor’s edge, a little meaner and rougher than usual, remarks a little quicker and a little sharper and a little less thought-out.

            Typically, Lance can last longer than most of them, especially lately. Especially when Kuron’s told him to sit down and shut up and take orders, and he’s had to watch Allura run around with Lotor and get betrayed (and he knew, he knew, he _fucking knew_ Lotor was a bad idea, but of course, _don_ _’t listen to Lance, amiright?_ ), and everyone’s been too hung up on Shiro’s return to really pay much attention to the fact that other people are probably splintering, fracturing, one well-placed hit away from _completely shattering._

            Maybe he’s not the only one. He _can_ _’t_ be the only one, and that’s the only thought that’s kept him from _completely snapping._

            The fight they underwent a few hour ago was intense, too many close calls occurring for comfort. Miraculously, this was one of the few battles where _Lance_ came away without much of a scratch, where Red stayed online and in one piece the whole time, where they took as few hits as possible, but Lance still has the right to proclaim that he’s _tired,_ doesn’t he?

            ( _Tired_ in every sense of the word, tired of being unseen, tired of carrying the weight of the entire team’s problems on his shoulders, tired of _being quiet,_ tired of _listening and being nice,_ tired of shutting up for the sake of everyone else.)

            “Oh come _on_ Lance!” Pidge gripes. “What do you have to be _tired_ about? Hunk almost _died_ and—”

            “I’ve _already died!_ ”

            He doesn’t mean for the way his words leave him like a cry, guttural and anguished. Doesn’t mean for tears to spring to his eyes as he suddenly confesses it, and then appears dumbfounded with _himself._ He’s thrown his arms up, and now draws them back in, close to his chest, head whipping around the circle. He tries to shrink away from the suddenly-prying eyes of everyone else.

            “What the hell do you—”

            “He’s telling the truth,” Allura admits quietly, cutting off Pidge, and low gasps arise from the group as a collective, and Lance wishes now more than ever that he could run and hide. As it is, his muscles feel tight as a coiled spring, ready to explode. He would have no problem running off to Red, parked just a short distance away…

            “What?” Keith asks incredulously, voice soft and, impossibly, filled with pain.

            “On a mission, a while ago,” Allura says, “a shield we were fixing malfunctioned, and this…sort of energy beam shot out, and Blue and I were directly in its path. Lance and Red pushed us out of the way, but…Lance…he died. I had to revive him.”

            Lance can’t breathe. He can’t breathe and he can’t take the scrutinizing gazes, the staring and studying, the looks of sudden sympathy where there was nothing but _contempt_ before, contempt for the fucking _goofball_ who couldn’t possibly make any kind of worthwhile contribution—

            “It’s not the first time he’s been willing to die for a friend,” Coran speaks up, gazing sorrowfully at the fire. “When Rover was acting up, and turned out to be a bomb, Lance saved my life by pushing me out of the way, and taking the brunt of the blast. Then, he hardly knew me.”

            Lance’s throat’s closing now. He brings a hand up, tries to peel his jumpsuit away from his neck but the fucking thing is skintight and it’s impossible to get any air to his lungs and people are still looking. Lance’s eyes find Shiro and Shiro’s gaping at him, because _wow, look at that, you_ _’re not the only one who died around here_ , and for some reason it makes Lance even more skittish, to have his hero, their former leader looking at him like that, and he can’t, he _can_ _’t._

            Lance forces his legs to work, gets up, and runs.

            It’s not a smart idea to run to Red because he’s _right there_ with all of the other Lions, and it would be so, _so_ easy for someone to come after him, so he doesn’t. He weaves around Red’s legs and heads deeper into the woods of this planet, deeper into large tree trunks and thick undergrowth and low-hanging branches and vines and doesn’t look back, not even when the others call for him to stop.

            His own breath comes sharp and short, in gasps and bursts that are too loud and not enough. He’s dizzy from lack of breath and lack of sleep and lack of proper nutrition and he can’t get up when he trips and goes crashing to his knees, wheezing, crying. He doesn’t even know how far he’s gone, if the team is in earshot or not, but the first sob wrenches itself out of his chest and he becomes undone.

            He doesn’t even know he’s been followed until there are knees in his line of vision—red armor on the kneecaps, gentle hands suddenly on his biceps, someone murmuring, brokenly, for Lance to _look at me, it_ _’s okay, I’m here._

            At another time, Lance might have bemoaned his ego, mourned its death, but he can’t bring himself to. Not anymore. Not when it comes to Keith. When Keith pulls Lance against him, hard and fast, Lance holds on, and sobs harder when he finds that Keith is crying with him. He doesn’t even know why Keith’s crying, why he’d _ever_ cry for Lance, because really, he doesn’t mean _that_ much, does he? Yeah, they’re friends, but why _cry?_

            “I’m sorry,” Keith whispers then, almost like he can hear Lance’s question. “I-I know what it feels like, Lance, and I’m _sorry_.”

            “Wh…what?” Lance chokes out between sobs, and can’t bring himself to look at Keith’s face because he doesn’t want pity, doesn’t _need_ pity over something that happened what feels like a lifetime ago, after everything else he’s been through, something he _should be over by now,_ just like he gets over everything else.

            So he doesn’t look at Keith’s face. He absorbs Keith’s words and holds him tighter while Keith cries harder, and Lance cries harder, until the two of them squeeze out every last teardrop, crouched over on the forest floor.

            This morning, Lance would never have imagined himself like this—losing it in front of his teammates, crying into Keith’s shoulder out in the middle of the woods on some unfamiliar planet, but here he is anyway.

            “What did you _mean, Keith?_ ” Lance wheezes, when the two of them finally pull back, and he can get a good look at Keith’s wildly bright eyes, still glistening with the last traces of his tears. “What the _fuck do you mean_ you _know what it feels like?_ ”

            He needs to focus on something, anything other than his own death, other than the feeling of his soul detaching from his body as he shrieked, and his skin sparked with electricity, and his bones vibrated and teeth chattered and everything in him lit aflame, while Red’s bond thrummed with an energy the likes of which overwhelmed Lance’s mind and heart, a final scream shared between them before it _snapped_ and left nothing but pain to fill the void—

            “I almost died,” Keith admits, voice hollow. “A while ago, when all that shit was going down on Naxzela.”

            And in another life, another timeline, maybe Lance would have mocked him at this point, would have called him out and demanded to know how almost dying is anything like actually dying, when the team almost dies every single day, but it sounds like there’s a whole chunk of Keith _missing_ when he says it, and the conviction when he speaks, and the way he looks at Lance and there’s true _understanding and fear and dammit, dammit, dammit,_ Lance can’t snap at him, not when he’s come to find him and not when they’re co-leading this whole mess again and not when Lance might just—

            “What?” Lance whispers.

            “The shield, on Haggar’s ship.” Keith’s voice turns croaky and he can’t hold Lance’s gaze any longer. His eyes drop to the ground and he takes in a shuddery breath and Lance still holds onto him, squeezes where his hands rest on top of Keith’s and _wow, when did they get like that?_ “I was going to fly my ship into the shield. If Lotor…if he’d been a second later…”

            _Oh._

_Oh fuck._

_Fucking quiznak._

            “The team needed to get away and I…I knew I could do something and I didn’t even _think_ until I was already moving and…I couldn’t even _say anything._ The Blades needed me and you guys had Lotor to deal with and it was just another day on the job, and I…I’ve just been _sitting on this._ ”

            It takes a minute for Lance to push through the fog in his brain and put two and two together, to let things slide into place and realize what _letting it sit_ means for Keith. What _a while ago on Naxzela_ means in his time, because while that was only a few short months ago for Lance, for the rest of them…Keith spent two years away, _two fucking years_ and maybe his mom knows, maybe Cosmo knows, but the rest of the team is _still in the dark._

            Typically, Lance is good with words, but this situation is anything but typical, when in the span of the last half hour, they’ve each just admitted their most deadly or near-deadly experiences to each other, so he does the only thing he can think of and wraps his arms around Keith, gentler than they were just moments before, but somehow harder. Steadier.

            “I’m sorry, too,” Lance says quietly. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize, sorry I never said something—”

            “Me too,” Keith interrupts. “I…I wish we both could’ve been there, for each other. Maybe…maybe things would be different.”

            Different how, Lance doesn’t know and maybe Keith doesn’t either. Maybe Lotor would never have been involved with the team the way he was, maybe Lance’s death would’ve never come to fruition if he talked to Keith about this sooner, maybe they would have discovered Shiro’s death sooner, maybe there are a million maybes and maybe some of them would’ve come true and maybe none of them would ever have seen the light of day, but it’s too late for them to go back and do things over.

            “Maybe,” Lance concedes, “but…now we’ve gotta keep pushing on.”

            And pushing on involves going back to the team, facing them, facing inevitable apologies and _I didn_ _’t realize_ s and _I wish I could have done something_ or _I wish I_ _’d known_ and a sudden change in everyone’s demeanor, sudden niceness Lance expects to last for a few days before they run into trouble again, before Lance will throw his life on the line for them over and over, because regardless of how he’s been treated, he can’t stop himself from saving them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully future prompts will be happier??
> 
> see ya whenever the next one is


	21. xxi. gossip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s not true, Lance can’t protest against hundreds, maybe thousands of parroted words._
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6 during the road trip back to Earth. A battle gone wrong results in Keith's near-death and nasty headlines smearing Lance's name (and, consequently, Team Voltron).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a demon klancer so we've got established kl going on (don't look at me like that)
> 
> alright have fun

## xxi. gossip

            Gossip’s a funny thing.

            Lance enjoyed it in his Garrison days—going to parties, getting the latest scoops on who was supposedly dating who and who did this and who said what—and passing it along to his friends, because everyone suffering under Iverson’s iron thumb had to have some way of keeping spirits up when their commander threatened to crush their happiness in his grip.

            Maybe he even enjoyed some space gossip every now and then. Maybe he used to enjoy knowing what the Blue-now-Red Paladin’s reputation was across the universe, whether Loverboy Lance was catching on or if he needed to change the nickname, whether people thought he was hot stuff or whether he needed to switch up tactics.

            Gossip’s got a way of being both a buddy and a bitch, and right now, it’s fully in bitch territory.

            Has been, for the last month since the mission.

            Of all places for Lance to screw up, a planet with a people whose reach extended far was not the place to do it. But his attention slipped, for the briefest second, and Keith paid the price for it, and suddenly it was _everywhere._

            _RED PALADIN NEARLY KILLS BLACK PALADIN._

            Of course, the headlines vary, but their sentiment is the same: Lance is the one who landed Keith in a pod for four straight weeks, the only healing pod the team managed to salvage from their destroyed castle. Lance is the one who put the team out of commission for four weeks, delayed their trip back to Earth, delayed the saving of the universe.

            _It_ _’s not true,_ Lance can’t protest against hundreds, maybe thousands of parroted words. He can’t waste the time to tell them all of what really happened, of the other threat that got his attention that he _eliminated,_ of the fact that it was a trap, a setup to smear Team Voltron’s name, Lance is _sure of it,_ because why would such an influential news source like the planet Nunfama lie? Why would they set up the universe’s only hope?

            “Hey,” a voice greets quietly from behind Lance, a little scratchy-sounding, on vocal cords that produced ear-splitting screams while he was stabbed, shot at. Vocal cords that couldn’t contain their agony as Lance rushed the team leader to safety, cursing himself for not being quick enough on the draw, for not being able to see 360 degrees at the same time.

            Keith sits down next to Lanced on wobbling legs, legs that dangle over the cliffside Lance has been overlooking for the last hour, and Lance’s arm automatically shoots out to steady Keith, worry lines creasing his forehead as he considers the possibility of Keith accidentally stumbling and falling to his death.

            (And in Lance’s mind, he sees the new headlines: _JEALOUSY FORCES RED PALADIN OVER THE EDGE._ And jealous of what? Not being the Black Paladin? That’s gone, far in the past, and Lance still doesn’t know how that bit of old information ever got out in the first place.)

            “How’re you feeling?” Lance asks.

            It’s not easy to sit around and wallow in his own self-pity when _Keith_ was the one, not too long ago, desperately clinging to life. When he’s still pale and gaunt from nearly a month of being sustained by the pod, and not real food or sunlight or water. When there are visible scars on his arms and shoulders, and Lance can picture the ones hidden beneath his shirt, can still see the blood painting the both of them as Lance sprinted and willed Keith to stay alive.

            “Better, I guess,” Keith answers.

            He’s been out of the pod for two days. Two days, and Lance avoided him on both.

            (Another headline, one that the press will _never_ write, because they’re not allowed to have this information: _RED PALADIN AVOIDS BOYFRIEND FOR TWO DAYS. BREAKUP ON THE HORIZON?_ )

            “Good, that’s…I’m glad,” Lance responds.

            He doesn’t even glance over. He lets silence reign, for a little bit, before Keith clears his throat, and Lance braces himself for what’s coming.

            “I..I heard, a-about what’s been happening,” Keith says, and looks sidelong at Lance. “I don’t blame you, you know. Neither do the others. We know the truth. You know that, right?”

            Of course Lance knows that—he wouldn’t be Keith’s right hand and boyfriend otherwise. He’s never once doubted Keith’s unwavering faith in him—it’s not him or even the team who have Lance worried. It’s the headlines, and if they were harmless aside from slandering his name then yeah, he would be okay with letting things slide. But he’s being weaponized, to turn potential allies away from Team Voltron. Or at least, Team Voltron as long as Lance is still a part of it.

            “I know. I don’t wanna talk about me,” Lance replies. “You’re the one who almost died.”

            “Yeah, well, still alive.” Keith laughs softly. “Guess Shiro’s been rubbing off on me. Can’t get rid of us, no matter how hard you try.”

            No, people will never be able to get rid of Keith or Shiro, because people _want_ them around.

            Lance rubs his arm as he stares at the horizon, discomforted frown morphing into a full-fledged glare, the harder he thinks on the situation, how one little gossipy headline has spiraled out of control, has turned into planets and galaxies wanting Lance gone from the team for his supposed betrayal.

            _Then why not try to kill me? Why go after Keith in the first place?_

“I guess not,” Lance agrees quietly.

            Lance stays sitting on the cliffside well beyond nightfall, Keith leaving and bidding him a good night shortly after sunset. Then it’s just Lance and his thoughts, the memories of embittered aliens glowering his way, utterly disgusted with him. Even people who’d adored him before suddenly looked at him like he were no more than the ground beneath their feet.

            And for what?

            _What is your game?_ Lance wonders, at the twinkling city in the distance, where the reporters closest to the scene of the battle no doubt scurried off to when things were all said and done. _What are you trying to do?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next prompt is confession,,, :P
> 
> see ya then


	22. xxii. confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Well, McClain, looks like you ignored every last one of my warnings,” Iverson says by way of greeting, peering down at Lance in clear disdain, as if Lance expected anything different._
> 
> Canon-verse, post-s6. Under Iverson's orders, Lance is captured and brought into the Garrison for interrogation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is probably not what u were expecting but it's where my mind went ;P
> 
> **trigger warning for non-con drug use and mild canon-typical violence**

## xxii. confession

            Lance wishes he could say that the Galaxy Garrison is the last place he ever expected to be interrogated, but Iverson’s been shady from day one, and the more he thought on Kerberos, and on Sam, and on the Galra, and on Matt and Shiro and everything he’s ever been taught, the less sense it made, and the more sinister things became.

            At least there are no druids here.

            The room is small. The chair Lance is sitting in presses against the wall across from the door. Next to his chair, on the right, there’s a monitor, and Lance’s head’s connected to it by a bunch of tiny nodes that may or may not have been attached to him when he was unconscious. Metal restraints keep his wrists and ankles locked in place against the arms and legs of the chair, and there’s another restraint around his neck to keep him upright.

            There aren’t windows in here. Against the wall to his left is a series of tools cast in shadow, and Lance really doesn’t wanna know what they’re for, and hopes he’ll never find out. The right-side wall is bare, save for the doctor in a Garrison hazmat suit, the same sort of suit Lance remembers the three knocked-out goons wearing the night he and Keith saved Shiro, and Lance wishes now more than ever that someone would come save _him._

            But no worries, he guesses.

            He’s been to space, fought in a war, nearly died— _did die,_ Lance reminds himself—more times than fit on one hand. He’s taken on plenty of fights on planets far more advanced than Earth, been in hostage situations with worse odds. The Garrison and Iverson should be nothing he can’t handle. He’s just gotta hold out until someone can come get him, or until he can think of a way out himself.

            The door across the room opens and Lance looks up, mind flipping through the various personas he can put on to get through this. There’s Defiant Lance, stubborn and unyielding and generally unpleasant, who’ll definitely end up getting punched in the face before this is over. Then there’s Cheeky Lance, a little spitfire full of boundless snark, also likely to wind up with a few bruises. There’s also Meek Lance, terrified out of his wits and willing to do anything to get Iverson to be nice to him, but then there’s also Lazy Lance, who generally doesn’t give a fuck and would rather be taking a nap.

            A handful of other Lances still sit in the back of Lance’s mind, but for now, he weighs these four, as Iverson strolls forward, back rod-straight, hands clasped behind him.

            “Well, McClain, looks like you ignored every last one of my warnings,” Iverson says by way of greeting, peering down at Lance in clear disdain, as if Lance expected anything different.

            Meek Lance used to be his default when dealing with authority. He picked up that trait in his childhood, deftly evading the punishments his siblings used to receive for acting out by playing the role of the innocent one, the one who knew when they screwed up and always had an apology ready to go.

            Meek Lance must have gotten over Iverson in space, because his response as Cheeky Lance comes naturally.

            “Never really been one to listen to authority, though, have I?”

            He smiles, Cheshire Cat-like as Iverson’s displeasure grows. He motions for the second Garrison doctor, who’s silently followed him into the room, to go get something from the table of tools that Lance doesn’t want to deal with, never once looking away from the Paladin in front of him.

            “Don’t worry, we’ll have you singing a different tune in no time,” Iverson responds. “We’re going to ask you a series of questions, and we expect truthful answers. Luckily, we’ve got a little something to help with that.”

            “Of course you do,” Lance mutters, and is secretly relieved when Iverson ignores him in favor of watching the second Garrison doctor fiddle with something at that table. The first one, though, is scarily silent by the wall still, and Lance can’t help but flick his gaze to him, eyes narrowing.

            He holds down the urge to ask just who this Garrison doctor is, as he suddenly perks up, suddenly peers at Lance. Lance can’t see him, because their helmets are designed like one-way windows, but he knows the moment the Garrison doctor’s eyes land on him, and then the moment he looks away. Looks at Iverson and his lackey.

            The lackey turns, and there’s a syringe in his hand. Lance fights against the shiver that shoots down his spine at the sight of it, and the fact that Iverson’s motioning for the guy to keep going, to _stick Lance with the frick-fracking needle_.

            But it doesn’t happen.

            Iverson’s too busy sneering, smirking at Lance to notice that the two doctors have nodded to each other, and they lunge in sync. The one with the syringe tackles Iverson like a linebacker, while the other one rushes to free Lance from his restraints and (painfully) tear the nodes from his head, and Lance wonders why the hell they couldn’t have just freed him in the time they spent just _standing around_ before Iverson ever even entered the room.

            Then he decides he has a more pressing issue, like getting out of here and back to the team, wherever they are. Lance doesn’t know if they’re in cells, or if they’re actively resisting, or if they’re…no, he won’t entertain that thought.

            Lance makes a move for the door when the Garrison doctor who freed him blocks his way, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Iverson and the other doctor—a doctor currently shoving Iverson back against the seat Lance was just sitting in. The second Garrison doctor restrains him, while Iverson swears up a storm. His eyes lock on Lance, flashing dangerously.

            “ _You_ ,” he snarls. “You’ve got something to do with this!”

            Lance wants to protest that _no,_ he really doesn’t, he doesn’t actually have a clue what’s happening, but he’s trapped in this room by the first doctor, blocking the door, gesturing to the nodes now dangling off to the side of the monitor. The second doctor acts before Lance does, while he suddenly realizes just what’s happening. Why the first doctor’s keeping him here, and what he wants Lance to do.

            “Look, man,” Lance says, raising his hands defensively, eyes cutting back to the table of tools in quick assessment. “I’m not into the whole interrogation thing, I-I don’t think—”

            “Trust me,” the first doctor interrupts, and Lance is sure he’s being fixed with an insistent stare at the moment, and he mentally curses the helmet serving as a barrier between their eyes. “Just ask him a few questions about who the Garrison’s _really_ working with, and what they’re really up to. What he was _really_ going to do to you.”

            Lance has a few answers of his own for that one— _he was going to interrogate me. The Garrison_ _’s working with the Galra. Iverson’s been a shady shit from day one. I don’t need to do this._ But the doctor nods toward Iverson, toward the monitor booting up, toward the second Garrison doctor on standby. So Lance scowls, sighs, and turns back to face Iverson, who’s watching him with a measure of amusement too large for his situation.

            “Alright,” Lance says, striding forward. “Fine. I’ll question him. But-but no torture, okay? I don’t…Voltron doesn’t operate like that.”

            Honestly, it’s sort of an exercise in self-restraint, because there’s a Lance buried underneath several years of war in space who’s still bitter about his treatment at the Garrison, a Lance who actually entertains the idea of giving Iverson even the smallest bit of pain, because nothing will truly make up for the years of emotional abuse he suffered at the hands of his commander. But Lance tamps down on his angry past self, takes in a breath, and takes another step forward.

            The two doctors nod like they understand, and the second one snatches Iverson’s hat and tosses it aside, so he can attach the nodes to his head. Iverson squirms the whole time, but ultimately, he can’t get away, and within minutes, every last node is in place. The monitor on the right goes from static to darkness, interspersed with little swirls of color here and there. Lance’s stomach roils at the sight, and the knowledge that that could have been him just minutes ago.

            “Okay,” Lance says, “so what do these guys mean, Iverson? Are you just working with the Galra? Are there other people involved?”

            To Lance’s shock and mild horror, the truth spills out of Iverson effortlessly, while the monitor lights up with images of Galra soldiers, Galra ships out in the desert. _Sendak_ of all people descending the gangway, shaking hands with Iverson, making a promise to strengthen Earth like never before, if the Garrison would only side with the Galra, and turn in Voltron at first opportunity…just the Lions. He’s free to do what he pleases with the Paladins.

            “Yes, we’re working with the Galra, and the Galra only,” Iverson confesses.

            “A-And what did you plan on doing to the Paladins?” Lance asks. “What were you going to do to _me?_ ”

            The answer is what he was expecting, but dreads to hear anyway: “Disposal.”

            The word comes out through grit teeth. Iverson must be fighting back against the serum that’s been administered, sending a tremor through Lance. He steps back, toward the door. Once again, his eyes find the table of tools, and he wonders what he could get away with snagging and using. What he could break past the two doctors with, or if he would even be fast enough for that.

            “Do you _trust_ the Galra?” Lance whispers.

            “Yes.”

            The questions themselves aren’t much, but it’s a lot to process for Lance. His former commander, a teacher who saw him through his preteen years, and most of his time as a teenager, would be willing to kill him. Would be willing to kill his friends, other former cadets and instructors. Would be willing to hand over an entire planet’s fate to an empire as diabolical as the Galra Empire.

            “You’ve made a mistake,” Lance says, voice shaking. “Why?”

            “Victory or death,” Iverson answers, and there’s something hollow to his answer.

            It’s enough to send Lance stumbling back as if he’s taken a physical blow. The first doctor rushes over, and Lance tears away from him. He swings a fist at his face without thinking, and to his surprise, his fist actually does damage. That is, _shatters the face plate of the hazmat suit._ Lance gapes at his own fist, and then at the face staring back at him, expression a mirror image.

            Even worse, Lance recognizes this face.

            “ _Adam?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> whoever the other doctor is is up to interpretation, idk who the fuck they are. matt? one of adam's friends? idfk have a blast
> 
> i'm still trying to plow thru these and catch up
> 
> see ya later


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